So I was running over some election trivia, partially because it connects with a post I hope to write soon and partially because, hey, it’s Sunday, and I started thinking about the vice presidency as a stepping stone to the presidency. Now, there have been a fair number of vice presidents who became president through succession – the president that they served under died or resigned.
But by my count, only four out of the 47 vice presidents that the US has had served out full terms as VP and then got elected to the presidency in their own right. Two Republican have done it fairly recently: Richard Nixon served as VP from ’51 to ’59 under Dwight Eisenhower before being elected in ’68. George H.W. Bush served as VP for Ronald Reagan from ’81 to ’89 and got elected to succeed him as president in ’88.
But on the Democratic side, you have to go way back to the early 1800s. Thomas Jefferson served as VP under John Adams back when we made the presidential runner-up the VP, and then beat Adams in the 1800 election. And Martin Van Buren won the election of 1836 after serving as Andrew Jackson’s VP. Since then, nothing. And not for lack of trying: the Democratic Party has nominated its last three vice presidents in subsequent presidential races: Hubert Humphrey in ’68, Walter Mondale in ’84, and Al Gore in 2000. All three lost the presidency by varying margins. I think this is just a weird quirk of history, but it does suggest that unless tragedy strikes, the VP slot isn’t likely to lead to bigger things.