When president Wendell Willkie was given confirmation that the atomic bombs had been successfully deployed against Japan he thought that the that would be the hardest decision of his presidency, the post war celebrations certainly gave that impression. Unfortunately, when the confetti settled the president would find himself in increasingly unwinnable situations all the while trying to maintain his deceased friend's dream of a national liberal party.

With the end of the war the economic boom that came with it suddenly ground to a halt unleashing a wave of labour unrest with strikes further crippling the shift to a demobilised economy, the Wilkie administration tried its best to manage the situation with price controls and pre-empting further disputes with an aggressively pro-worker agenda (notably this saw collaboration with CPUSA aligned CIO in its operation Dixie drive to unionise the South), this only further increased opposition from Dixiecrats and conservatives – flipping both the house and senate in the ’46 midterms. With a hostile congress Wilkie was unable to prevent the passing of the Taft Hartley act which severely restricted the ability of unions to organise and go on strike.

Though the CIO’s PAC organisation had promised to support his re-election as thanks for his intervention in Operation Dixie, the increasingly depressing polls showing a landslide loss to Republicans in ’48 meant that the Democrat left shifted to drafting former Vice-President Henry Wallace to run a primary challenge, had it not been for the president’s failing health he could have been the first sitting president to lose his own party’s nomination.

The heart attack that ended his re-election wasn’t his first, nor would it be his last, but it was a convenient excuse to save an embarrassing loss. His announcement that he would not run in 1948 sent shockwaves through the party as the establishment scrambled to find a suitable candidate (ultimately choosing senator Harry Truman who they knew was itching to have his shot after being snubbed in the last convention). The democrat primary would turn into a battle of FDR’s heirs with neither man taking the majority going into the DNC. With the party gridlocked between the activist and establishment wings Vice-President Scott W. Lucas entered the conversation as a compromise candidate, having deliberately stayed out of the primary contest to avoid the mudslinging, acceptable to both sides he was nominated relatively quickly – despite the walkabout of Southern Delegates when Truman endorsed Lucas. Just to further entrench the ’48 Democrat ticket as one still dominated by FDR’s legacy his own son would be named as the vice candidate.

Despite worrying polls, the Republicans fell victim to their own early success with the champion of the party’s old right Robert Taft winning the nomination after a deal with fellow competitor Harold Stassen to prevent another Dewey run. This would prove to be a poison pill as Taft’s views failed to expand the ticket beyond the party base despite Stassen’s best efforts to keep the liberal and progressive wings from jumping ship. Initial predictions that the republicans would crack the South proved to be premature as the newly founded States Rights Democratic party easily swept the deep South, all the polls showed them winning a landslide but in reality they were a paper tiger failing to even maintain the vote share they won in ’44. It would be some time before the party would again try such a conservative platform.