There is no explicit indication in the
U.S. Constitution as to when that person actually becomes vice president-elect, although the
Twentieth Amendment uses the term "Vice President-elect", thus giving the term constitutional justification.
Incumbent vice presidents who have won re-election for a second term are generally not referred to as vice presidents
-elect, as they are already in office and are not waiting to become vice president.
Elections of vice presidents-elect
In many, but not all, instances in which a new vice president has been elected, there is also a change of presidents, with a new president having been elected. This has not always been the case, however. There have been instances in which an incumbent president is reelected with a new vice president-elect as their
running mate. This has often been due to an incumbent vice president having not received renomination. The most recent time this happened was
in 1944, when
Harry S. Truman was elected to replace
Henry A. Wallace alongside the ailing three-term president
Franklin D. Roosevelt. However, in other instances, this has been due to the vice presidency having been vacant, as there was no way to fill a vice presidential vacancy mid-term until the ratification of the
Twenty-Fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution. The most recent time that a new vice president was elected alongside an incumbent president was
in 1964, when
Hubert Humphrey was elected alongside
Lyndon B. Johnson, with the vice presidency being vacant due to Johnson's ascension after the
assassination of President
John F. Kennedy. Ever since, all elections of new vice presidents have come alongside an election of a new president. No incumbent president has sought re-election or election to a full-term with a running mate different than their incumbent vice president since
Gerald Ford did so unsuccessfully in
1976.
It is possible for an incumbent vice president to win reelection as the running mate of a new president-elect, in which case there would be a
United States presidential transition with the election of a new president-elect, but there would be no vice president-elect. This first happened in
1808 when Vice President
George Clinton, who was originally elected with
Thomas Jefferson, was reelected as vice president with
James Madison becoming president-elect. This happened again in
1828, when Vice President
John C. Calhoun, who was elected vice president in
1824 with
John Quincy Adams, was re-elected as vice president with
Andrew Jackson becoming president-elect.
Roles in presidential transitions
As previously mentioned many vice presidents-elect, and all from 1968 onwards, have been elected alongside a new president-elect, meaning that the period before many vice-presidents elects have entered office as vice president have entailed presidential transitions.
Similar to the president-elect, the
General Services Administration is authorized by the
Presidential Transition Act of 1963 to provide the vice president-elect with funding, office space, and various government services (such as transportation and communications) to accommodate their role in the transition between presidential administrations.[1]
The role that various vice presidents-elect have played in United States presidential transitions has differed.
Bill Clinton heavily involved Vice President-elect
Al Gore in
his 1992–93 transition, including him in a group of confidants that joined Clinton in making many of the transition's top decisions.[4]Jimmy Carter allowed Vice President-elect
Walter Mondale to play a role in
his 1976–77 transition, including allowing him to provide input on some individuals being considered for roles in the administration.[5]
Some presidents-elect have excluded their vice presidents-elect from playing a significant role in their transition. For instance, in
Dwight D. Eisenhower's
1952–53 transition, Vice President-elect
Richard Nixon did not play an active role.[6] During Nixon's own the
1968–69 transition, Vice President-elect
Spiro Agnew was similarly largely uninvolved.[7]
If the vice president-elect dies or resigns before the meeting of the Electoral College in December, the national committee of the winning party would, in consultation with the president-elect, choose a replacement to receive the electoral votes of the vice presidential nominee in the same manner as would happen if the former vice presidential nominee had become president-elect due to the death of the apparent winner. Assuming the requisite number the electors agreed to vote for the replacement candidate, that person would then become the vice president-elect. If such a vacancy were to occur after the electoral votes had been cast in the states, most authorities maintain that no replacement would be chosen and the new president (after taking office) would nominate a vice president, per the provisions of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution.[8]
Vice President-designate of the United States
Before
ratification of the 25th Amendment in 1967, the Constitution contained no provision for filling an intra-term vacancy in the vice presidency. As a result, when one occurred (and did 16 times), the office was left vacant until filled through the next ensuing election and inauguration. Since 1967, the vice presidency has been vacant twice, and a successor was nominated each time to fill the vacancy in accordance with the 25th Amendment. The first instance was in 1973 when
Gerald Ford was nominated by President
Richard Nixon to succeed
Spiro Agnew, who had resigned. The second came in 1974, when Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency following Nixon's resignation, nominated
Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him.[9][10] During both vacancies, the nominee was called vice president-designate, instead of vice president-elect, as neither had been elected to the office.
^Column counts number of vice president-elect.
Gerald Ford and
Nelson Rockefeller are not counted because they entered office intra-term and were never elected to the vice presidency.
^Also after a delay in the certification of the electoral votes by Congress.
^Ill with tuberculosis, William King traveled to
Cuba after the 1852 election in an effort to regain his health, and was not able to be in Washington, D.C. to take his oath of office on March 4, 1853. By an Act of
Congress, he was allowed to take the oath outside the United States, and was sworn in on March 24, 1853
near Matanzas, Cuba. He is the only vice president to take his oath of office in a foreign country.
^Also after a dispute over 20 electoral votes from four states was resolved by a special
Electoral Commission established by Congress.
^Burke, John P. (2000). Presidential Transitions: From Politics To Practice. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers. p. 29.
ISBN1555879160.
^Henry, Laurin L. (January 1961). Presidential Transitions. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution. p. 491.
^Coffey, Joseph P. (2015). Spiro Agnew and the Rise of the Republican Right. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO. pp. 89–91.
ISBN978-1440841415.
^Coleman, Kevin J.; Cantor, Joseph E.; Neale, Thomas H. (April 17, 2000).
"Presidential Elections in the United States: A Primer"(PDF). CRS Report for Congress. Congressional Research Service - Library of Congress. p. 48.
Archived(PDF) from the original on March 31, 2010. Retrieved December 24, 2016.