Texan John Nance Garner, Franklin Roosevelt’s vice president from 1933 to 1941, and known for his flowery language, is credited with a rather crude quote about this function : “The vice presidency is no more valuable than a bucket of warm piss.” In many cases, the “VP” remains behind the scenes. Their constitutional power is limited to presiding over the Senate, without participating in its debates – although they do have the ability to vote in the event of a tie. Their other official role is limited to remaining available to replace the president if he dies, resigns, or is impeached.
This relegation to the background has not prevented some vice presidents from winning a presidential election. But not all! The post-Second World War period demonstrated that they had almost as much chance of reaching the White House as of being left outside. Here is Kamala Harris, almost certain to be designated as the Democratic candidate after the withdrawal of the candidacy of the incumbent, Joe Biden, warned.
Let’s put aside the case of Lyndon Johnson: when he won the election in November 1964, he was already the sitting president, thanks to the assassination of John Kennedy a year earlier. In the Democratic camp, only one VP has managed to be elected president in recent decades: Joe Biden himself. But when he won the Democratic primary – against, in particular, Kamala Harris – he was no longer vice president, it was Mike Pence, whom Donald Trump had chosen as his running mate.
Another VP who no longer held that position at the time of the presidential election also managed to win it: Richard Nixon, in 1968. Vice-president of Dwight Eisenhower from 1953 to 1961, he had the advantage of having been quite active in foreign policy, “Ike” being limited in his travels by health problems. This is a revenge: in 1960, Kennedy had won the majority of states against him.
The worst? A Gore or Humphrey scenario
Kamala Harris may fear a scenario like the one that Al Gore, Bill Clinton’s VP, experienced. “In 2000, Clinton was not unpopular, but he was suffering from what the American media called ‘Clinton fatigue’,” recalls historian Yves-Marie Péréon, author of Giving back power, American presidents after the White House. From Washington to Trump (Tallandier). Gore appeared to many Americans as a technocrat who gave lessons on the environment or new technologies, and he had a very effective campaign team facing him around George W. Bush.
Kamala Harris may also fear a scenario like the one Hubert Humphrey experienced. He took responsibility after Lyndon Johnson withdrew from running in 1968 – like Biden this July. Subsequently, the assassination of the primary frontrunner, Bob Kennedy, led to his nomination at the Chicago convention. But the dissident candidacy of George Wallace – a former Southern Democrat opposed to desegregation – and the polarization within the Democratic Party over the Vietnam War allowed Richard Nixon to win more states than his competitor.
Kamala Harris can hardly hope for a scenario like the one that led to the election to the presidency in 1988 of George Bush senior, the only VP in office at the time of her election. in the 20th century – the last was Martin Van Buren in 1836, after… John Adams in 1796 and Thomas Jefferson in 1800.
“He was Ronald Reagan’s VP, who was still very popular despite the Iran-Contra scandal. At the time, the economy was doing well despite the stock market crash of 1987, and he had an image of the grandfather of the nation, which is not the case with Biden currently in a context of strong polarization, recalls Yves-Marie Péréon. And against Governor Michael Dukakis, the Democratic candidate, there was at the time a very effective campaign, which caricatured him as an irresponsible left-wing man.” A brutality that the Republican candidate, Donald Trump, and his running mate, Senator JD Vance, will probably not spare.