1944 United States presidential election 1944 United States presidential election The United States presidential election of 1944 was the 40th quadrennial presidential election, held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. The election took place during World War II. Incumbent Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt defeated Republican Thomas E. Dewey. Roosevelt had become the first president to win a third term with his victory in the 1940 presidential election, and there was little doubt that he would seek a fourth term. Unlike in 1940, Roosevelt faced little opposition within his own party, and he easily won the presidential nomination of the 1944 Democratic National Convention. However, that
Franklin D. Roosevelt transformed American politics and started what political scientists call the "New Deal Party System" or the Fifth Party System. Between the Civil War and 1929, Democrats had rarely controlled both houses of Congress and had won just four of seventeen presidential elections; from 1932 to 1979, Democrats won eight of twelve presidential elections and generally controlled both houses of Congress. Roosevelt was elected in November 1932 but, like his predecessors, would not take office until the following March. After the election, Hoover sought to convince Roosevelt to renounce much of his campaign platform and to endorse the Hoover administration's policies.