It seems obvious that sitting vice presidents like Joe Biden should think that they are best prepared to take over the top job, as White House spokesman Josh Earnest suggested yesterday.
But a review of presidential political history shows that just one sitting vice president — George H.W. Bush — has been given that promotion by voters in 175 years.
George H.W. Bush was the first sitting vice president to win the presidency in over 150 years. AP Photo
“Even with a wave of initial good will at his back for a 2016 campaign, Biden would face long historical odds in winning the White House from his current political perch,” said the analysis from the University of Minnesota’s Smart Politics news site.
The report from Eric Ostermeier, of the University of Minnesota’s Humphrey School of Public Affairs, is a splash of cold water on those pushing Biden for president and draws new attention to the troubles vice presidents have getting into the Oval Office.
Take Al Gore as an example. He was the last sitting vice president to run for the presidency and he had the full establishment behind him, as Hillary Clinton does now. He also had an era of good feeling on his side since the economy was humming along, but he failed to beat George W. Bush.
While early American history found more examples of sitting veeps moving up, George H.W. Bush, then Ronald Reagan’s vice president, was the first since Democrat Martin Van Buren in 1836, said Ostermeier. Richard Nixon, Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president, did get elected president but he wasn’t a sitting vice president at the time.
Highlights from his report provided to Secrets:
● A Smart Politics analysis finds that just two sitting vice presidents have been elected to the presidency across nine attempts in the modern two-party era since 1828 and only one over the last 175 years.
● Two sitting VPs were elected president before the ratification of the 12th Amendment – John Adams (1796) and Thomas Jefferson (1800). Thereafter nine have ventured a presidential bid from their perch as vice president with only two doing so successfully – Democrat Martin Van Buren in 1836 and Republican George H.W. Bush in 1988.
● Seven other sitting VPs launched failed presidential campaigns. Three lost their party’s nomination (Republican Charles Fairbanks in 1908, Democrat John Nance Garner in 1940, and Alben Barkley in 1952) and four lost in the general election (Southern Democrat John Breckinridge in 1860, Republican Richard Nixon in 1960, Democrat Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Democrat Al Gore in 2000).
● In addition to the seven failed bids by sitting vice presidents mentioned above, five others received modest to nominal support for president at nominating conventions, although they did not officially launch candidacies for the office: Democrat George Dallas in 1848 (three delegates), Democrat Adlai Stevenson in 1896 (10), Democrat Thomas Marshall in 1920 (37), Republican Charles Dawes in 1928 (four), and Democrat Walter Mondale in 1980 (one).
● Thomas Jefferson (1800) and John Nance Garner (1940) are the only two sitting vice presidents in history to run against a president seeking reelection with Garner the only one to do so against a president from his own party.
Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner’s “Washington Secrets” columnist, can be contacted at [email protected].
