Although a second, lengthy tour was planned for late October, Truman rested for only four days after returning to Washington before setting off on a series of short train journeys. On October 6 he began a three-day swing through the mid-Atlantic states, continuing to hammer the Republican-controlled Congress. The crowds were large; on the ride from Albany to Buffalo, between 5,000 and 10,000 people showed up at every stop. Invariably someone would shout, "Give ‘em hell, Harry," and Truman would. The polls, and the reporters, continued to dismiss the crowds as gatherings of the naturally curious.

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During a second short trip through the upper Midwest, Truman gave his aide George Elsey a state-by-state run-down of the electoral votes he expected to win. Truman predicted that he would get 340 to Dewey’s 108. He conceded that Thurmond would probably take 42 and that 37 were in doubt. Elsey had doubts as well–of the entire prediction–but he didn’t tell the president.

Truman began his final swing through the country on October 24, still considered a certain loser. During this second tour, Newsweek published the election opinions of 50 highly respected political reporters. All 50 predicted Truman would lose. Truman looked at the magazine and said, "I know every one of these 50 fellows. There isn’t one of them has enough sense to pound sand in a rat hole." Truman sensed what others could not–that the average voter was listening to him and believing in his message.

Still, many politicians avoided associating themselves with the Truman campaign for fear of damaging their own political futures. Frank J. Lausche, the Democratic candidate for governor in Ohio, was one. Lausche didn’t want to jeopardize his bi-partisan support by appearing on the campaign train as it passed through Ohio. Only with great reluctance did he eventually agree to get on board and ride a few miles to Dayton with the president. He was adamant that he would leave the train after that short ride.

What Lausche saw amazed him. There were 7,000 people at the first small-town stop. The crowd in Dayton spilled out of the station, blocking traffic in the streets. "Is this the way the crowds have always been?" he asked the president. "Yes, but this is smaller than we’ve had in most states," Truman responded. Lausche stayed on the Truman train all the way to Akron.

Toward the end of the campaign, some of the reporters on the Truman train began to sense the changing political winds, noting a particularly large crowd or noisy ovation as the President "gave ‘em hell." While most maintained that Dewey would win big, a few began to cautiously hedge on their earlier predictions. Dewey himself even began to have a few doubts. With just two weeks left in the campaign, a Gallup poll showed that his lead was down to six points. On Dewey’s instruction, his staff contacted 90 of the 96 Republican committee members around the country to ask their opinion on whether he should change his tactics. All but one counseled the governor that he was sure to win if he continued the type of campaign he had been running.

When the final campaign swings ended, both candidates predicted victory to the press. No one believed Truman’s prediction. The Gallup poll now had Dewey winning 49.5 percent of the vote to Truman’s 44.5. The New York Times predicted that Dewey would take 29 states with a total of 345 electoral votes, to Truman’s 11 states and 105 electoral votes. Strom Thurmond, it was expected, would carry four southern states. Elmo Roper had stopped taking polls in early September, based on his absolute confidence that Dewey would win and that further polling was unnecessary.

Not even Truman’s closest associates shared the president’s confidence. Clark Clifford, who had mapped most of the Truman campaign strategy, thought that Truman was gaining and might have been able to pull off a victory if the campaign had been a week or two longer.

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