“...only Martin van Buren (Andrew Jackson’s Veep) and GHWB (Ronald Reagan’s veep) have won election to the presidency as sitting VPs.”
Interesting. So a VP’s ability to secure the nomination is no indication of his ability to win the Presidency.
A few more related dynamics:
VPs who have been nominated but failed to win the Presidency, have rarely chosen to run again four years later, and the exceptions, Humphrey in 1972 and Ford* in 1980, failed to win the nomination on their second attempt. (Ford gets an asterisk because he ran both as a past VP and as a past unelected President).
However, Richard Nixon, who was nominated but lost in ‘60, and who chose not to run in ‘64, was nominated a second time in ‘68, and went on to win the Presidency twice by landslide.
That puts my point succinctly. It is only when the sitting POTUS is a large figure that being his political heir matters in the general election.Richard Nixon, who was nominated but lost in ‘60, and who chose not to run in ‘64, was nominated a second time in ‘68, and went on to win the Presidency twice, once by landslide.The key point is that governors get more respect than senators and/or veeps in the general election. From this distance, Pence looks good for ’24.
1968 was a tight election.