How Many Vice Presidents Have Become President: Fifteen by Path

Fifteen vice presidents have become president of the United States, out of the 49 people who have held the vice presidency since 1789.¹ They reached the top job by three different routes: nine took over when a president died or resigned, four won a presidential election while sitting as vice president, and two won years after leaving the office.

Nine Who Succeeded After a Death or Resignation

The largest group reached the presidency without winning it. Eight vice presidents took over when the president died in office, and one when the president resigned.¹

John Tyler took over on April 4, 1841, after William Henry Harrison died a month into his term.
Millard Fillmore succeeded Zachary Taylor, who died on July 9, 1850.
Andrew Johnson became president after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated on April 15, 1865.
Chester A. Arthur took over after James A. Garfield died on September 19, 1881.
Theodore Roosevelt succeeded William McKinley, who died on September 14, 1901.
Calvin Coolidge assumed office after Warren G. Harding died on August 2, 1923.
Harry S. Truman became president after Franklin D. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945.
Lyndon B. Johnson took office after John F. Kennedy was assassinated on November 22, 1963.²

The ninth is Gerald Ford, who became president on August 9, 1974, when Richard Nixon resigned during the Watergate scandal. Ford’s case was doubly unusual. He had not been elected vice president either; he was appointed under the Twenty-fifth Amendment after Spiro Agnew resigned in 1973, making him the only person to serve as both vice president and president without winning a national election for either job.³

Only four of these nine ever won a presidential election on their own: Theodore Roosevelt in 1904, Calvin Coolidge in 1924, Harry Truman in 1948, and Lyndon Johnson in 1964.² Tyler, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, and Arthur each left the White House without winning a term of their own. Ford ran in 1976 and lost to Jimmy Carter, taking 240 electoral votes to Carter’s 297.⁴ Tyler in particular was treated as an illegitimate placeholder by many in Congress and was nicknamed “His Accidency.”⁵

Four Elected While Serving as Vice President

A much smaller group won the presidency at the ballot box while still holding the vice presidency. Only eight sitting vice presidents have ever been nominated for president by a major party, and just four won:⁶

John Adams was elected in 1796 after two terms as George Washington’s vice president.
Thomas Jefferson was elected in 1800 after serving as Adams’s vice president. Under the original electoral system, both men had become vice president as the runner-up in the presidential vote, a mechanism that no longer exists.
Martin Van Buren was elected in 1836 after serving under Andrew Jackson.
George H.W. Bush was elected in 1988 after two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president.⁷

The gap between Van Buren in 1836 and Bush in 1988 is 152 years. During that stretch, every sitting vice president who ran lost. John C. Breckinridge lost in 1860, Richard Nixon in 1960, Hubert Humphrey in 1968, and Al Gore in 2000.⁶⁸⁹

Two Elected After Leaving the Vice Presidency

Two vice presidents took a longer route, winning the presidency years after their vice-presidential term ended.

Richard Nixon was Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president from 1953 to 1961. He lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy and lost a race for governor of California in 1962.¹⁰ He came back and won the White House in 1968, eight years after leaving the vice presidency.

Joe Biden served as Barack Obama’s vice president from 2009 to 2017. He did not run in 2016, but ran and won in 2020, becoming the 46th president and the 15th vice president to reach the top office.¹¹¹²

The Full Count

Adding it up:

Succeeded after a president’s death or resignation (nine): Tyler, Fillmore, Andrew Johnson, Arthur, Theodore Roosevelt, Coolidge, Truman, Lyndon Johnson, and Ford.
Elected while serving as vice president (four): Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, and George H.W. Bush.
Elected after leaving the vice presidency (two): Nixon and Biden.¹

About 31 percent of everyone who has served as vice president has eventually become president. That share is inflated by the succession cases. Only six vice presidents have won the presidency through a competitive general election: Adams, Jefferson, Van Buren, Bush, Nixon, and Biden.

Why So Few Sitting Vice Presidents Win

Since Franklin Roosevelt’s first term in 1933, 15 of 18 vice presidents have launched presidential campaigns, but only five won: Truman, Lyndon Johnson, Nixon, George H.W. Bush, and Biden.¹² Three modern vice presidents earned their party’s nomination and lost the general election: Henry Wallace on the Progressive Party ticket in 1948, Walter Mondale in 1984, and Al Gore in 2000.

The pattern points to a structural problem. Sitting vice presidents are tied to the administration they serve in, which makes it hard to distance themselves from unpopular decisions or to argue they represent change. The role itself asks them to play a follower, which makes it harder to convince voters they can lead on their own. Voters have often preferred what one analysis called “vague promises” over the “imperfect accomplishments” of the outgoing administration.¹³ Nixon’s uneasy relationship with Eisenhower, Humphrey’s inability to break from Lyndon Johnson on Vietnam, and Gore’s effort to find distance from Bill Clinton after the Lewinsky scandal all point to the same bind.¹⁴ Each of the four sitting vice presidents nominated and defeated between Van Buren and Bush ran when their party had already held the White House for at least two consecutive terms.⁶

How Succession Became Automatic

The nine succession cases work the way they do because of a precedent set in 1841. When William Henry Harrison died, the Constitution said presidential powers “shall devolve on the Vice President” but was unclear on whether the vice president actually became president or merely acted in the role.¹⁵ Tyler refused the title “Acting President,” took a full presidential oath, moved into the White House, and reportedly returned any mail addressed to him as “Acting President” unopened. Both houses of Congress passed resolutions on June 1, 1841, affirming his status as president.⁵

Every later vice president who inherited the office followed Tyler’s lead. The precedent was used eight times before it was written into law by the Twenty-fifth Amendment, ratified on February 10, 1967, which states: “In case of the removal of the President from office or of his death or resignation, the Vice President shall become President.”¹⁶ The same amendment created a procedure to fill a vacancy in the vice presidency itself, a situation the original Constitution left unaddressed and one that had left the office empty for a cumulative 37 years across 16 vacancies.¹⁷ Under Section 2, the president nominates a replacement subject to majority confirmation by both houses of Congress. It was used almost immediately: Nixon nominated Gerald Ford to replace Agnew in 1973, and Ford then nominated Nelson Rockefeller to replace himself in 1974.¹⁸

1
U.S. Senate. Vice Presidents of the United States
2
National Archives. Abrupt Transition
3
Archives Foundation. The Unelected President
4
The American Presidency Project. 1976 Presidential Election
5
White House Historical Association. John Tyler and Presidential Succession
6
National Constitution Center. Why Sitting Vice Presidents Don’t Fare Well as Presidential Candidates
7
History, Art and Archives, U.S. House of Representatives. Presidents Coinciding
8
The American Presidency Project. 2024 Presidential Election
9
National Archives. 2024 Electoral College Results
10
Trump White House Archives. Richard M. Nixon
11
Joe Biden. About Joe Biden
12
Pew Research Center. Most U.S. Vice Presidents in Recent Decades Have Sought the Presidency, but Relatively Few Have Won
13
Center for Politics. The Vice Presidential Advantage
14
PBS NewsHour. Kamala Harris’ Election Would Defy History
15
National Constitution Center. John Tyler: America’s Most Unusual President
16
National Constitution Center. Amendment XXV
17
Congress.gov. Twenty-Fifth Amendment
18
Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library and Museum. Establishment and First Uses of the 25th Amendment