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The ascension of Vice President Kamala Harris to become the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee in less than 48 hours is an unprecedented occurrence in American politics.
Her victory in November, if it happens, would also be an extremely rare event.
Only four people in US history have won a presidential election as a sitting vice president.
Two of those races, from more than 200 years ago, featured Founding Fathers running in a different election system.
Back then, the vice president was the runner-up in the presidential election. The bitter elections of 1796, which was won by John Adams, and 1800, which ended in a tie and was decided when the House of Representatives picked Thomas Jefferson, led to the adoption of the 12th Amendment, after which electors voted for president and vice president as separate positions.
A few decades later, in 1836, Vice President Martin Van Buren, who was known as the “Little Magician” for his short stature, won the race to succeed two-term populist President Andrew Jackson. Van Buren was the first president born after the Declaration of Independence. Bank failures and a financial collapse marred his presidency, and Van Buren lost his bid for reelection in 1840 and also failed in an attempted comeback with a third party years later.
And that was it for nearly 150 years. Vice presidents became president after the death of multiple presidents and the resignation of one, but no other person won the White House from the vice presidency until 1988, with George H.W. Bush, who succeeded two-term President Ronald Reagan.
The current president, Joe Biden, was vice president under Barack Obama, but he did not run to succeed Obama – which we’re learning created some frustration on Biden’s part when Hillary Clinton lost to Donald Trump in 2016.
If Harris loses this year, she will have to endure one of the most humbling experiences in US politics, overseeing the counting of electoral votes in her role as vice president for a presidential election she lost. Three other vice presidents have endured this indignity, all in extremely contentious circumstances.
In 1861, Vice President John Breckinridge oversaw the counting of electoral votes that made Abraham Lincoln president, at a time when Southern states seceded from the country rather than accept Lincoln’s 1860 victory.
Vice President Richard Nixon narrowly lost the 1960 election to John F. Kennedy and oversaw the counting of electoral votes in 1961. Nixon would return to victory eight years later. Vice President Al Gore won the popular vote but lost the election in 2000 after a controversial Supreme Court decision, and he oversaw the counting of electoral votes in 2001 that made Bush’s son, George W. Bush, president.
