15 Photos of U.S. Vice Presidents on the Campaign Trail
It's official, both the Democrat and Republican Parties have selected their nominees for President and V.P. after a few election-year weeks that have been... chaotic to say the least. Vice President Kamala Harris has officially been chosen as the 2024 Democratic Presidential nominee and just announced her running mate to be Minnesota Governor Tim Walz. Donald Trump has selected author and Republican Senator from Ohio, JD Vance, known for his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, as his VP pick. Choosing your running mate is one of the most important calls a Presidential hopeful has to make, and we've all seen the results of previous disastrous VP picks by both parties.
Let's look back at the past 60 years of elections, with 15 photos of American Vice Presidents before they were elected (or re-elected) out on the campaign trail.
2020: Kamala Harris
Before becoming Vice President, Harris served as a U.S. Senator from California and Attorney General of the Golden State. Harris also campaigned for the 2020 Presidential nomination, and even clashed with Biden at a few debates, but dropped out in December 2019. She was announced as the VP pick in August of 2020 among other frontrunners including Elizabeth Warren, Susan Rice, and Gretchen Whitmer.
2016: Mike Pence
Mike Pence, previously the Governor of Indiana, first endorsed Ted Cruz as the 2016 Republican Presidential nominee but endorsed Donald Trump when he beat Cruz at the primary and was selected as Trump's running mate over other choices including Chris Christie and Newt Gingrich. Following his Vice Presidency, Pence was one of the targets of rioters during the January 6th Capitol attack while he presided over the joint session of Congress certifying the 2020 electoral college vote results. Pence has since distanced himself from Trump, criticizing him for his role in inciting the Capitol Riots and attempting to pressure Pence to overturn the election results.
2012: Joe Biden
Incumbents Barack Obama and Joe Biden at a rally in Dayton, Ohio. Ohio is a major swing state that went blue in the 2012 election, a key victory for Obama and Biden along with Colorado, Florida, Nevada, and Virginia. Key issues discussed during the campaign included the response to the 2008 recession, the ending of the Iraq War, and the efficacy of Obama's legislative achievements including the Affordable Care Act which he signed into law in 2010.
2008: Joe Biden
Obama and Biden at Windmill Ice Cream Shop in Pennsylvania in August 2008, shortly after Biden was officially selected as the Democratic VP nominee. Securing both the popular vote and electoral vote majority over Republican candidates John McCain and Sarah Palin, the former junior Illinois Senator and Delaware Senator took office in 2009.
2004: Dick Cheney
Incumbent veep Dick Cheney at a rally in Ohio. It was rumored that Cheney may be replaced for re-election and names like Rudy Giuliani, Bill Frist, and Rob Portman were reportedly floated, but Cheney stayed on the ticket with the pair clinching a second term over Democrats John Kerry and John Edwards.
2000: Dick Cheney
George W. Bush and Dick Cheney held a rally in Naperville, Illinois on Labor Day, 2000. It was one of only five elections in history, and the first since 1888, where the winning candidate lost the popular vote. Bush and Cheney won 271 electoral votes to Al Gore and Joe Lieberman's 266, while the democratic candidates won 48.4% of the popular vote just over Bush and Cheney's 47.9%. Bush won the election by securing Florida's electoral college votes by a margin of just over 500 votes, and a manual recount of the votes was halted by the U.S. Supreme Court in the winter, with Gore officially conceding the election on December 13, 2000.
1996: Al Gore
Vice President Al Gore and Bill Clinton ran for a second term against the former Kansas Congressman and Senator Bob Dole and his running mate Jack Kemp. In this shot, Gore and Clinton are campaigning in Great Falls, Maryland by participating in an Earth Day cleanup.
1992: Al Gore
Gore and Clinton at a campaign rally in Gore's hometown of Carthage, Tennessee. Gore served as a congressman and Senator from Tennessee before joining Clinton's campaign, and in fact, Gore's 1990 re-election to the Senate was the last time a Democratic Senator was elected in Tennessee. The Democrats defeated incumbents George H.W. Bush and Dan Quayle, ending a long period of mostly Republican electoral victories through the '7os and '80s.
1988: Dan Quayle
Quayle spoke with a voter during a stop at the Bush/Quayle 1988 campaign headquarters in Washington D.C. just about a month before the election in October. George H.W. Bush and Quayle beat Democrats Michael Dukakis and Lloyd Bensten with 426 electoral college votes and 53.4% of the popular vote.
1984: George H.W. Bush
George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush aboard Air Force Two while on the campaign trail for his second term as Vice President. Facing former VP Walter Mondale and Geraldine Ferraro on the Democratic ticket, incumbents Ronald Reagan and Bush won the presidency in one of the biggest landslide victories in U.S. election history. Reagan's campaign highlighted economic recovery efforts from the 1981-82 recession and was able to counter criticisms of Reagen's old age with messaging in TV advertisements.
1980: George H.W. Bush
Bush with Ronald Reagan at a campaign press conference. They ran against each other for the Presidential nomination in the primaries, and Bush claimed a few states, but Reagan's substantial lead proved insurmountable. Partly due to the poor approval ratings of incumbents Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale because of factors like economic stagflation and the Iran hostage crisis, the Reagan and Bush ticket claimed a landslide victory in the General election.
1976: Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter ate together in Carter's hometown of Plains, Georgia on the campaign trail. They secured a narrow victory against incumbents Gerald Ford and Bob Dole, with Carter appearing as a surprise Democratic nominee who was relatively unknown outside of Georgia where he had served as Governor and a State Senator.
1972: Spiro Agnew
The incumbents Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon at the Republican National Convention. Another big electoral win for Republicans, they beat George McGovern and Sargent Shriver with 60.7% of the popular vote, the largest percentage of any Republican candidate for U.S. President. Both Nixon and Agnew resigned before the end of their second terms, due to the Watergate scandal and a corruption investigation and conviction respectively.
1968: Spiro Agnew
Nixon and Agnew accepted their nominations for President and Vice President at the 1968 RNC, beating former VP Hubert Humphrey and Edmund Muskie, and segregationist politician George Wallace who ran on the American Independent Party ticket, at the general election. The assassinations of Martin Luther King Jr and Robert F. Kennedy, and university campus protests against the Vietnam War were just a few of the events that made it a particularly chaotic campaign year.
1964: Hubert Humphrey
Hubert Humphrey at a campaign stop in a shopping center in Levittown, Pennsylvania. He and Lyndon B. Johnson secured the highest percentage of the popular vote for any Democratic Party candidate in history over Republican opponents Barry Goldwater and William E. Miller.
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