Is it relevant that a sitting vice president has won the presidency only once in 188 years?
Many vice presidents have gone on to win the presidency, but only after they left office. Only George H.W. Bush in 1988 was able to win the presidency running as a vice president. Before Bush, the last sitting vice president to win the presidency was Martin Van Buren in 1836.
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Other sitting vice presidents who became president were elevated to office after the death of the president. Recently, Al Gore and Richard Nixon ran for president while serving as vice president. Both men went down to defeat although Nixon won eight years later.
Why can’t vice presidents win in their own right? As Washington Post columnist Marc
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