In the 1944 U.S. presidential election, Ball refused to support Republican nominee Thomas E. Dewey, the governor of New York, and instead crossed party lines to endorse Franklin Roosevelt. Ball denounced Dewey for making his position on foreign policy so unclear that both isolationists and internationalists "could find comfort and support in what he said". Ball's support for Roosevelt, which may have proved critical to victory in Minnesota, won praise from his senatorial colleague Carl Hatch, a New Mexico Democrat, who said that Ball had "placed his country above his party".