The campaign text book of the Democratic party for the presidential election of 1892

The 1944 election is much more typical - with respect to statistics, not issues. Mr. Dewey received only 99 electoral votes out of a possible 432. Looks like a landslide-but let's analyze it In 1944 there were 87,000,000 American citizens over twenty-one; only 48,000,000 of them voted. That leaves 39,000,000 "sleepers" - persons who did not register, or just failed to vote. If the preferences for president ran in the same ratios among the "sleepers" as among those who voted, then Mr. Dewey lost 18,000,000 potential votes - but Mr. Roosevelt beat Mr. Dewey by considerably less than 4,000,000 in the popular vote. It looks as if the persons who were against the Fourth Term weren't against it enough to bother to turn out to vote! If the Republicans had carried California, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania, Mr. Dewey would have been elected. These are key states, swing states. None of them can be counted as normally Democratic; in the last ten presidential elections the Democratic Party has lost each of these states either half, or more than half, the time ...»