United States Presidential election, 1944 (Napoleon's World)

The United States Presidential election of 1944 was held on Tuesday, November 7, 1944. Contested during a period of weak economic growth in the aftermath of the 1939-40 recession and national opposition to the disastrous occupation of Canada from 1941-43, Nationalist Prescott Bush of Connecticut defeated incumbent Democratic President Joseph P. Kennedy, Sr. of Masachusetts in a race that was closely contested both in the electoral college and in the popular vote, with Bush winning with a mere ten electoral votes and only a 1.1% margin of the popular vote. The election marked the fourth Presidential race (out of five) since 1928 that the Nationalists had won.

The election was viewed as the last-gasp defeat of the isolationist and protectionist wing of the National Party, which attempted to nominate Senator Robert Taft or Governor John W. Bricker (both of Ohio) to the Presidency after a contested primary left no clear frontrunner. The ticket of Bush and then-Governor of New York Thomas Dewey wound up being successful, propelling the two men to eight years in the White House and cementing in place the liberal-to-moderate Eastern Establishment wing of the National Party, which would dominate American politics for the next sixty years.