Vice presidential candidates in the American presidential elections: strategies for selection and effects

Marco Morini

doi:10.21533/epiphany.v8i1.115

Abstract

American vice presidential candidates are chosen for several reasons. Some of these rationales are easy to be recognized, while others belong to the cockles of the heart of the presidential candidates. Social scientists and journalists agree about the factors that are more essential: the vice presidential (VP) nominee’s capacity of balancing the ideological and personal characteristics of the presidential candidate and the “native son” effect, namely the guarantee that the VP nominee would carry his/her own state. These strategies are often combined and they work at different electoral levels: the first one has usually a national or macro-regional significance while the second is crucial in the battleground states. This research is divided into two sections: the first one investigates the “balancing the ticket” strategy, offering an overview of about one century of presidential races. The second aims to verify the VP nominee’s effect in his/her home state. The results will confirm that there have been several running mates who have been selected in order to “balance the ticket” but also that the vice president nominee’s effect in the home states has been quite poor.

Highlights

An accepted wisdom is that vice presidential candidates are of minor importance to most voters
Grofman and Kline found out that the direct effect of a vice presidential candidate is generally less than 1 per cent in terms of getting voters to cross party lines: Only in 1972 was more than 1 per cent of the final vote affected by conflicted vice presidential and presidential preferences; on average, over the 1968-2008 period, the net impact of conflicted presidential and vice presidential choices is only slightly less than 0.6% of the votes shifted (p. 1)
Grofman and Kline pointed out that there were two relevant caveats to their findings: Data may understate the impact of vice presidential selection on choice because voters modify their views of the president based on vice presidential selection, and the data we report may be ‘contaminated’ by unmeasured effects of vice presidential choice

Summary

Introduction

An accepted wisdom is that vice presidential candidates are of minor importance to most voters. Grofman and Kline study examined voters’ specific preferences for both President and Vice President and found that about 11% of the population on average has “conflicted” preferences — where a voter prefers the presidential candidate of one party and likes the vice presidential nominee of the other party. Using this data, they estimate the degree to which a vice presidential candidate alone might determine the electoral result. Epiphany: Journal of Transdisciplinary Studies, Vol 8, No 1, (2015) © Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences

Vice presidential candidates in the American presidential elections

Dick Cheney was expected to give dignity and international politics experience

Coolidge MA

Findings

Conclusion