Can Kamala Harris Overcome the VP Curse?

Can Kamala Harris Overcome the VP Curse?

Not since Al Gore lost to George W. Bush in 2000 has the sitting VP vied for the Oval Office

By Barbara Perry

Vice presidents get a bum rap and sometimes the bum's rush. Thomas Marshall, Woodrow Wilson's VP, quipped, "Once there were two brothers. One ran away to sea; the other was elected vice president of the United States. And nothing was heard of either of them again." Kidding aside, nine of our 45 chief executives have died or resigned, so the odds are 20 percent that a vice president could become president.

For the first time in nearly a quarter-century, we have an incumbent vice president, Kamala Harris, running for the presidency. Not since Al Gore narrowly lost to George W. Bush in 2000 has the sitting vice president vied for the Oval Office. Second place has been the most frequent finish for those second in command when they have run for chief executive in the modern era. Does vice-presidential service curse candidates?

After Vice President Martin Van Buren's 1836 victory, no incumbent VP garnered the presidency until George H. W. Bush did so in 1988. A quartet of sitting or former vice presidents had tried and failed in the previous quarter-century:

  • 1984: Walter Mondale lost by a landslide to Ronald Reagan;
  • 1976: Gerald Ford was narrowly defeated by Jimmy Carter;
  • 1968: Hubert Humphrey ran a close second to Richard Nixon;
  • 1960: Richard Nixon lost by a thin margin to John Kennedy.

Only two past or present vice presidents ran for president between 1924 (Calvin Coolidge) and 1960 (Harry Truman in 1948). Both had assumed the office upon their presidents' deaths and then won a full term. Lyndon Johnson followed suit with his win in 1964 after becoming president upon John F. Kennedy's assassination.

Likewise, Theodore Roosevelt won his own term in 1904 after rising to the presidency after William McKinley's 1901 assassination. He sought the office again in 1912 as a third-party candidate against incumbent Republican William Howard Taft, but only succeeded in fracturing the GOP and handing the White House over to Wilson.

Why have Veeps (a term coined by the grandson of Truman's vice president, Alben Barkley) fared so poorly in striving for the top job?

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Barbara Perry

Barbara A. Perry is the J. Wilson Newman Professor of Governance at the Miller Center, where she co-directs the Presidential Oral History Program. She has authored or edited 17 books on presidents, First Ladies, the Kennedy family, the Supreme Court, and civil rights and civil liberties. Perry has conducted more than 150 interviews for the George H. W. Bush, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama Presidential Oral History Projects; interviewed President Bill Clinton; and directed the Edward Kennedy Oral History Project's conclusion. She served as a U.S. Supreme Court fellow and has worked for both Republican and Democratic members of the Senate. Perry earned a BA in political science from the University of Louisville, an MA in politics, philosophy, and economics from Oxford University, and a PhD in government from the University of Virginia.