List_of_unsuccessful_major_party_candidates_for_Vice_President_of_the_United_States

List of unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States

List of unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States

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The United States has had a two-party system for much of its history, and the two major parties have nominated vice presidential candidates in most presidential elections.[1] Since the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1789, there have been 59 unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States. Eight other individuals have served as the main running mate to a third party or independent presidential candidate who won at least ten percent of the popular or electoral vote.

Prior to the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes for president; whichever individual who won the most electoral votes would become president, while the individual with the second-most electoral votes would become vice president. In the elections of 1792, 1796, and 1800, at least one of the major parties ran a candidate whom they intended to elect vice president. The Twelfth Amendment changed the presidential election process, requiring members of the Electoral College to cast separate votes for president and vice president. Since then, the two major parties have almost always nominated a ticket consisting of a single presidential candidate and a single vice presidential candidate. Before the election of 1832, both major parties used a congressional nominating caucus, or nominations by state legislatures, to determine presidential and vice presidential candidates.[2] Since 1840, each major party has consistently nominated a single ticket at their respective presidential nominating conventions.

The two current major parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. At various points prior to the American Civil War, the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party were major parties.[1] In the 1872 presidential election, the Liberal Republican Party put forward an unsuccessful major party vice presidential nominee, Benjamin Gratz Brown. Brown and his running mate, Horace Greeley, were also nominated by the Democratic Party.[3]

List of unsuccessful major party candidates

These unsuccessful vice presidential candidates served as the main running mate of a major party presidential candidate who competed in multiple states, or they were a major party's main vice presidential candidate in multiple states.

  • * indicates that the candidate served as vice president at some point in their career
More information Election, Candidate ...

List of unsuccessful major third party and independent candidates

Further information: List of United States major third party and independent presidential tickets

These third party and independent candidates won at least ten percent of the electoral vote for vice president, or served as the main running mate to a third party or independent presidential candidate who won at least ten percent of the popular vote for president.[81]

More information Election, Candidate ...

See also

Notes

  1. The most recent elective office, or senior appointive position, held by the candidate either on election day or in November of the election year.
  2. State of primary residence at the time of the election.
  3. For elections held prior to 1804, this column represents the share of electors who cast a vote for the candidate. For elections held since 1804, this column represents the share of the total electoral vote for vice president won by the candidate.
  4. In the 1792 election, George Washington effectively ran unopposed for president, but the emerging Democratic-Republican Party attempted to defeat Vice President John Adams's bid for re-election.[6] Adams won re-election with 77 electoral votes, while Clinton won 50 electoral votes Thomas Jefferson, won four electoral votes, and Aaron Burr won one electoral vote.
  5. The Democratic-Republicans may or may not have officially nominated Thomas Jefferson for president through a congressional nominating caucus, but Jefferson was widely regarded as the party's main presidential candidate in the 1796 election. The Democratic-Republicans did not select an official vice presidential candidate. Aaron Burr finished with the second-most electoral votes among individuals affiliated with the party, while Samuel Adams and George Clinton each received several electoral votes. Federalist leaders agreed to support a ticket of John Adams and Thomas Pinckney, though it is unclear whether they formally nominated the ticket at a congressional nominating caucus.[8] Ultimately, Adams won the most electoral votes and became president. Because Jefferson won more electoral votes than Pinckney or Burr, he was elected as vice president.[4]
  6. Both parties held congressional nominating caucuses to nominate presidential candidates in 1800. The Democratic-Republicans nominated Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr, while the Federalists nominated John Adams and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. Some Federalist leaders, including Alexander Hamilton, favored Pinckney over Adams, but Adams won one more electoral vote than Pinckney.[11] Jefferson and Burr each won the votes of 73 presidential electors, more than either of the Federalist candidates. Because Jefferson and Burr tied in the electoral vote, the election was decided by a contingent election held in the House of Representatives; Jefferson was elected president and Burr became vice president.[4]
  7. Ingersoll had also served as a delegate to the Continental Congress and to the Constitutional Convention.[14]
  8. The Federalists did not nominate a ticket in 1816, though some Federalists were elected to serve as presidential electors. A majority of the Federalist electors cast their presidential vote for Rufus King and their vice presidential vote for Howard.[15]
  9. In the election 1824, no presidential candidate won a majority of the electoral vote for president, but John C. Calhoun won a majority of the electoral vote for vice president. Most presidential electors who voted for either John Quincy Adams or Andrew Jackson for president voted for Calhoun for vice president. Similarly, most electors who cast their presidential vote for Henry Clay cast their vice presidential vote for Nathaniel Macon, and most electors who cast their presidential vote for William H. Crawford cast their vice presidential vote for Sanford.[4]
  10. Sanford was the Chancellor of New York, the highest-ranking judge in the state. He had also served in the United States Senate.[17]
  11. The Whigs did not select an official presidential or vice presidential nominee in 1836. In most Northern states, the Whigs fielded a ticket of William Henry Harrison and Francis Granger, and in most Southern states, the Whigs fielded a ticket of Hugh Lawson White and John Tyler.[21] Granger, Tyler, and two Democrats, Richard Mentor Johnson and William Smith, each won a share of the electoral vote.[4] Because no one candidate won a majority of the electoral vote for vice president, the Senate held a contingent election to select the vice president. In the only contingent election that the Senate has ever held, Johnson defeated Granger.[22]
  12. The 1840 Democratic National Convention denied renomination to Vice President Richard Mentor Johnson, and the Democrats failed to officially nominate a vice presidential candidate in 1840.[25] Nonetheless, 48 of the 60 presidential electors who cast their presidential vote for Van Buren cast their vice presidential vote for Johnson. Most of the remaining Van Buren electors cast their vice presidential vote for Littleton Waller Tazewell.[26]
  13. Butler had also served as a major general of volunteers in the Mexican–American War.[29]
  14. After the collapse of the Whig Party in the mid-1850s, the Republican Party and the American Party (the political organization of the Know Nothing movement) emerged as the major challengers to the Democratic Party. By 1856, neither the Republican nor the American Party had truly supplanted the Whig Party as the second major political party in the United States.[31] Nonetheless, the American Party is frequently described as a third party.[32][33][34] After the 1856 election, the Republican Party firmly established itself as one of the two major parties alongside the Democratic Party, while the American Party collapsed.[35]
  15. The Democratic Party fractured along sectional lines in 1860 and held multiple national conventions. The Northern Democrats nominated Douglas and the Southern Democrats nominated Vice President John C. Breckinridge.[37][38] Many sources include Breckinridge as a third party candidate,[39][4][40] but other sources do not.[41][5]
  16. Horace Greeley and Benjamin Gratz Brown were nominated by the Liberal Republican Party, a splinter group of Republicans. The ticket of Greeley and Brown was later nominated by the 1872 Democratic National Convention, as the Democrats hoped to defeat President Ulysses S. Grant's re-election bid by uniting with the Liberal Republicans.[3][46]
  17. In 1896, after William Jennings Bryan won the Democratic presidential nomination, he was also nominated by the Populist Party, a major third party. The Populist vice presidential nominee was Thomas E. Watson.[52] Bryan's running mate on the Democratic ticket, Arthur Sewall, won 149 electoral votes for vice president, while Watson won 27 electoral votes for vice president.[4]
  18. Sewall was a member of the Democratic National Committee from 1888 to 1896.
  19. Kern was the Democratic nominee for Governor of Indiana in the 1900 and 1904 elections.[55]
  20. Sherman died on October 30, 1912, and Taft did not name another running mate before the 1912 election was held. After the election, the Republican National Committee designated Nicholas Murray Butler as Taft's running mate for the purposes of the electoral vote, and Butler received eight electoral votes.[56]
  21. Knox was primarily known as the editor of the Chicago Daily News.
  22. Miller also served as Chairman of the Republican National Committee from 1961 to 1964.[67]
  23. The 1972 Democratic National Convention selected Thomas Eagleton as the party's vice presidential nominee, but Eagleton dropped out of the race after it was publicly disclosed that he had undergone electroconvulsive therapy in order to treat depression. Shriver replaced Eagleton on the Democratic ticket.[69]
  24. For elections held prior to 1804, this column represents the share of electors who cast a vote for the candidate. For elections held since 1804, this column represents the share of the total electoral vote for vice president won by the candidate.

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Works cited
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