Video: 'Dewey Stassen Debate (1948) First Presidential Election Debate'

(Monday, May 17, 1948, 6:00 p.m. PST/10:00 p.m. EDT; during the Republican Party presidential primaries, 1948) — New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey and former Minnesota Governor Harold Stassen discussed the legal status of the Communist Party of the U.S. during the first audio-recorded presidential debate to ever take place in the United States tonight in Portland, four days before the 1948 Oregon Republican presidential primary.

The debate was broadcast nationally on radio and is credited with helping Dewey win the primary and the nomination of his party.