Ranking the U.S. Vice Presidents by Political Outcome

Joe Biden and Kamala Harris will be sworn in on January 20th, 2021, as the 46th President and 49th vice president of the United States. Joe Biden was the 47th vice president and ascends to the presidency after winning the 2020 presidential election. Although Biden found success after his turn as vice president, not all vice presidents have been as accomplished. This article ranks them based on their political outcomes after their time in the land's second-highest office.

(Created on Tiermaker.com by the author/All images public domain on Wikimedia Commons)

Mike Pence and Kamala Harris do not find themselves ranked yet. Neither Pence nor Harris fit into any of the categories at this time. It remains to be seen which tiers they end up on. Before being elected, Joe Biden found himself in the B Tier, but after being elected in November, he has upgraded himself to the S Tier.

(L-R: Thomas Jefferson, Richard Nixon, George H. W. Bush, Martin Van Buren, John Adams, Joe Biden)

S Tier (Elected President): The S Tier is reserved for those vice presidents who do not just become President by succession but win the presidency by being voted in. Only six vice presidents have accomplished this feat, and they are ranked from most time spent as President to least. At the top of the S Tier, we have Thomas Jefferson, the 3rd President. Jefferson is the only vice president to be elected to and serve two full terms.

Next, we have the 37th President Richard Nixon. Nixon was re-elected to a second term but was impeached and forced to resign his presidency. I contemplated putting Nixon at the bottom of the S Tier because of how badly it ended for him. Still, before his downfall, he was an incredibly politically successful vice president. Nixon managed to win reelection for a second presidential term. George H. W. Bush, Martin Van Buren, and John Adams all only served one term as President. Time will tell if Biden will be able to climb higher in the S tier.

(L-R: Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, Lyndon Johnson, John Tyler, Andrew Johnson, Chester Arthur, Millard Fillmore, Gerald Ford)

A Tier (President by Succession): The A Tier includes vice presidents who became President when the sitting President died or, in the case of Richard Nixon of the S Tier, resigned. It is important to note that some of the vice presidents in the A Tier were elected President, but this was the incumbent, so they do not qualify for the S Tier. The A Tier (like the S Tier) is ranked from most time spent as President to least, ranging from Calvin Coolidge’s 3,502 days to Gerald Ford’s 895 days. Only Calvin Coolidge, Harry Truman, Theodore Roosevelt, and Lyndon Johnson were elected in their own right to serve the term after they took over. Either from election or succession, 15 of the first 48 vice presidents have become President (around 30%).

(L-R: John Breckinridge, Walter Mondale, Al Gore)

B Tier (Party Nomination): The smallest tier, the B Tier, represents those who, after serving as vice president, become their party's nominee but cannot win. Joe Biden appears in this tier, but whether he remains here or not will be determined in November. This tier is ordered from the earliest to become a party nominee to the latest. All four nominees are from the democratic party, although John Breckinridge is from a significantly different period.

Breckinridge had been vice president to the ineffective 15th President James Buchannan. With tensions between the North and South rising, Buchannan was not up to the challenge of unifying the country and decided not to run for a second term. According to the Britannica, the democratic party split apart, and the southern pro-slavery wing nominated Breckinridge to run in the 1860 election. Abraham Lincoln of the newly formed Republican Party won the Presidency as Breckinridge finished in a distant second place. The civil war followed soon after Lincoln was elected.

Walter Mondale had been Jimmy Carter’s vice president. He lost in a landslide election to Ronald Reagan in 1984. According to the Britannica, Mondale chose Geraldine Ferraro as his running mate, which represented the first time a woman was selected as a vice-presidential candidate for a major party.

Al Gore was incredibly close to becoming President during the 2000 election. According to the Britannica, Gore lost to George W. Bush by a few electoral votes. Bush secured 271 electoral votes, just one over the needed 270 votes to be declared a winner. The election came down to Florida’s 25 electoral votes. It was so close that Gore trailed by less than 1,000 votes in the state after the first recount and called for a second manual recount. The U.S. Supreme Court decided the matter in a (5–4) decision canceling the second recount. George W. Bush became the 43rd President.

(Top Row From L-R: Dick Cheney, Charles Curtis, Charles Dawes, William Wheeler, Charles Fairbanks, Adlai Stevenson I, Richard Johnson, George Dallas, Schyler Colfax, Levi Morton. Second Row L-R: Thomas Marshall, Alben Barkley, Hubert Humphrey, Dan Quayle, Aaron Burr, John C. Calhoun, Spiro Agnew, Hannibal Hamlin, Henry Wallace, John Garner)

C Tier (Retired/Denied): This is by far the most exciting tier after we quickly get through the retirees. The C Tier represents vice presidents who never were nominated to be President for any other reason than their death (see D Tier). The retirees are those who, due to age or lack of ambition, did not attempt to run for the presidency after serving as vice president. A vice president’s ambitions from before they became vice president were not factored into the rankings. The retiree’s Dick Cheney, Charles Curtis, Charles Dawes, and William Wheeler lead off the C Tier. After serving as vice president, these four did not pursue the presidency.

Next in the C Tier are the two men that never received their party's nomination for President but did give it another go at the vice presidency. Both Charles Fairbanks and Adlai Stevenson accepted their party’s vice-presidential nomination with a different candidate leading the ticket. They both were unsuccessful in reaching the vice presidency a second time.

After that, we have the hopefuls. This group of eight tried to use the vice presidency to convince their parties that they deserved a chance to run for President. Unfortunately, although having differing levels of success, they were all ultimately unsuccessful. This, of course, lands them right in the middle of the C tier. They are Richard Johnson, George Dallas, Schyler Colfax, Levi Morton, Thomas Marshall, Alben Barkley, Hubert Humphrey, Dan Quayle.

Aaron Burr served as the vice president for Thomas Jefferson. When I made the tier list, I contemplated giving him his own tier under the dead tier because he was tried for treason two years after leaving the vice presidency, effectively derailing any further political career he may have wanted. However, Burr was acquitted of the treason charges, and his own tier did not seem warranted. If you are wondering, the treason charges were not concerning killing Alexander Hamilton in a duel, although a warrant was issued for his arrest. Burr’s alleged treason takes place after Lin-Manuel Miranda’s Broadway hit musical Hamilton: An American Musical. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Editors, Burr, after fleeing from Philidelphia after his duel, allegedly planned to invade Mexico to establish an independent government. The world could be a bit volatile to politicians in the early 1800s.

Following Burr, we have the two vice presidents that resigned: John C. Calhoun and Spiro Agnew. John C. Calhoun resigned in 1832 to become a Senator for his home state of South Carolina. Calhoun was the second of two vice presidents to serve for two different Presidents. Calhoun was a difficult person to place on the tier list because he arguably had a successful political career after serving as vice president. Still, because he never was nominated for or became President, he is ranked near the C Tier's bottom.

Spiro Agnew’s resignation was a bit more career-ending. Agnew is also the first of the four vice presidents to round out the C Tier, who narrowly missed becoming President. According to the Britannica, Agnew resigned from the Richard Nixon administration under the mounting pressure of a federal prosecution related to extortion, bribery, and income-tax violations. Agnew’s successor Gerald Ford would become President less than a year later after Richard Nixon’s resignation in 1974.

During Abraham Lincoln's first term, Hannibal Hamlin, the vice president, and Henry Wallace, the vice president during Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s third term, were even closer to the presidency before being replaced. Andrew Johnson replaced Hamlin for Lincoln’s second presidential run. Lincoln won reelection but was assassinated one month into his second term, making Johnson the President. Roosevelt died just three months into his fourth term giving Harry Truman the Presidency. Democratic party officials were not happy with Wallace. They worked to get him replaced on the ticket for Roosevelt’s fourth term knowing whoever was chosen as Vice President would likely become the President due to Roosevelt’s ailing health.

Last in the C Tier, and in my opinion, rightly so is Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s first vice president John Garner. Garner thought that Roosevelt would respect precedent and not run for a third term. However, Roosevelt bucked tradition and defeated his former running mate Garner again to receive the 1940 Democratic ticket nomination. Of course, the 22nd Amendment, which was passed by Congress in 1947 and ratified by the states in 1951, would limit a President to two terms, was a little too late for poor Garner.

(L-R: Nelson Rockefeller, Daniel Tompkins, George Clinton, Elbridge Gerry, William King, Henry Wilson, Thomas Hendricks, Garret Hobart, James Sherman.

D Tier (Dead): A bit morbid, but this tier is reserved for those vice presidents that died in office or soon after. The D Tier never had a chance to run for President, so I decided to give them their own tier. According to Elizabeth Nix of History, the D Tier vice presidents account for why the vice presidency has been vacant for over 37 years of American history.

Of the D Tier, only Rockefeller and Tompkins served their full terms. Rockefeller was replaced on Ford’s ticket for his attempt at a second term, and Rockefeller died about two years later. Ford lost the 1976 election. Tompkins served two terms as vice president for James Monroe and died less than 100 days after leaving office. George Clinton died in office but was the first of two vice presidents to serve under two different Presidents. Seven vice presidents have died in office: George Clinton, Elbridge Gerry, William King, Henry Wilson, Thomas Hendricks, Garret Hobart, James Sherman.

(Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons)

We will have to wait and see where Mike Pence and Kamala Harris end up on this tier list when all is said and done. Will either or both eventually run for president? And who will have the higher political outcome?

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