The 1944 Republican National Convention still nominates the former NYC DA and New York Governor Thomas Dewey, the man who put Luciano behind bars. Governor Bricker of Ohio is still named as his running-mate in order to appeal to conservatives in the party.
The Democratic National Convention is a free-for-all. The candidates who emerge as the front-runners are Vice-President Henry Wallace (the choice of old New Dealers), presidential assistant Jimmy Byrnes (the overwhelming choice of Southerners), Illinois Senator Scott W. Lucas (supported by the party's leaders) and Governor Paul McNutt (a dark-horse candidate). The convention is reminicent of the 1924 Klanbake in Madison Square Garden. The scorching July weather of Chicago is made worse when ballot after ballot is cast. Byrnes leads on the first three ballots but he lacks support from important northern Unions. When UAW Vice-President Walter Reuther tells Syd Hillman, the head of the CIO PAC, that his union will not endorse a ticker in 1944 is Byrnes is on it the South Carolinians campaign falls apart.
It appeared on ballot four, five and six that Henry Wallace would win. He led by a wide margin against the lesser known opponents. However, DNC Chairman Robert E. Hannegan began to throw his weight against Wallace. The Chicago press was "leaked" info on Wallace's strange realtionship with "guru" and conman Nicholas Roerich. Wallace, who had had all of his small say over the war stripped from him by FDR, flaked away like the red flake he was. By ballot seven he fell behind Senator Scott Lucas.
Senator Lucas, Kentucky Senator Alben W. Barkley or Governor Robert S. Kerr of Oklahoma all were emerging as good "compromise" choices. Senator Harry S Truman, who led a well-publicized but very minimal investigation of war profiteering, was also viewed as a good compromise choice by Midwestern Democrats. Truman, in the end, was viewed as too much of a lightweight and too tainted by Kansas City political bosses to be a good national candidate against the mob busting Dewey. By ballot eight Lucas had taken off as the front-runner. While only a one-term senator, Lucas had a solid reputation with labor and also as a good New Dealer. More left-wing Democrats started up a "Stop Lucas" campaign on the ninth ballot by backing Governor McNutt.McNutt dropped out and endorsed Senator Lucas after the senator had nearly attained a majority of the votes. A last second candidacy of controversial intellectual Rexford Tugwell went no where and Lucas won the presidential nomination on the tenth ballot, taking 1,066 votes to Tugwell's 110. Senator Lucas was paired with Governor Prentice Cooper of Tennessee in order to appease the party's southern constituency.
Following their big wins in 1942, the Republicans felt they could win the White House back in 1944 with Senator Lucas as Democratic nominee and not the fairly popular FDR. President Roosevelt, too sick and focused on the war to campaign, endorsed the Lucas/Cooper ticket. Republicans ran against "12 years of corruption and communism" in the highest offices of the land. Dewey promised that if elected president he would support and secure Social Security and worker's protections but would aim to end "war and peace time regulation which strangles the U.S. economy." Lucas was backed by labor. The AFL/CIO and UAW traveled around the nation to ask voters "Where were you in 1932?" Like his successor, former President Herbert Hoover chose to sit the 1944 contest out but apparently chuckled when he learned of the question.
In the end the New Deal coalition held out for one more race. Strong labor support and successes in the war maintained the odd political quilt of Northern liberals and Southern Democrats. Lucas won labor, African-Americans, Jews, Catholics, farmers and urban professionals. The Democrats also narrowly held the House of Representatives and the Senate, though lost heavily in both Houses. The Republicans licked their wounds and waited for 1946.
Scott W Lucas/Prentice Cooper (D): 270 EVThomas E. Dewey/John W. Bricker (R): 261 EVOthers (Socialist, Prohibition, etc.): 0 EV 
