# List of unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States

The United States has had a two-party system for much of its history, and the two major parties have nominated vice presidential candidates in most presidential elections. Since the ratification of the United States Constitution in 1789, there have been 59 unsuccessful major party candidates for Vice President of the United States. Eight other individuals have served as the main running mate to a third party or independent presidential candidate who won at least ten percent of the popular or electoral vote.
Prior to the ratification of the Twelfth Amendment in 1804, each member of the Electoral College cast two votes for president; whichever individual who won the most electoral votes would become president, while the individual with the second-most electoral votes would become vice president. In the elections of 1792, 1796, and 1800, at least one of the major parties ran a candidate whom they intended to elect vice president. The Twelfth Amendment changed the presidential election process, requiring members of the Electoral College to cast separate votes for president and vice president. Since then, the two major parties have almost always nominated a ticket consisting of a single presidential candidate and a single vice presidential candidate. Before the election of 1832, both major parties used a congressional nominating caucus, or nominations by state legislatures, to determine presidential and vice presidential candidates. Since 1840, each major party has consistently nominated a single ticket at their respective presidential nominating conventions.
The two current major parties are the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. At various points prior to the American Civil War, the Federalist Party, the Democratic-Republican Party, the National Republican Party, and the Whig Party were major parties. In the 1872 presidential election, the Liberal Republican Party put forward an unsuccessful major party vice presidential nominee, Benjamin Gratz Brown. Brown and his running mate, Horace Greeley, were also nominated by the Democratic Party.

## List of unsuccessful candidates
### Major parties

These unsuccessful vice presidential candidates served as the main running mate of a major party presidential candidate who competed in multiple states, or they were a major party's main vice presidential candidate in multiple states.
* * indicates that the candidate served as vice president at some point in their career
Federalist       Democratic-Republican       National Republican       Whig       Liberal Republican       Democratic       Republican :
| Election | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Running mate |
| Election | Candidate (Birth–death) | Candidate (Birth–death) | Party | Party | Office at time of election | Home state | EV% | Running mate |
| 1792 | George Clinton* (1739–1812) | | Democratic-Republican | | Governor | NY | 37% | None |
| 1796 | Thomas Pinckney (1750–1828) | | Federalist | | Fmr. Ambassador | SC | 43.7% | John Adams |
| 1796 | Aaron Burr* (1756–1836) | | Democratic-Republican | | Senator | NY | 22.2% | Thomas Jefferson |
| 1800 | Charles C. Pinckney (1746–1825) | | Federalist | | Fmr. Ambassador | SC | 36.4% | John Adams |
| 1804 | Rufus King (1755–1827) | | Federalist | | Fmr. Ambassador | NY | 8% | Charles C. Pinckney |
| 1808 | Rufus King (1755–1827) | | Federalist | | Fmr. Ambassador | NY | 26.7% | Charles C. Pinckney |
| 1812 | Jared Ingersoll (1749–1822) | | Federalist | | State attorney general | PA | 39.4% | DeWitt Clinton |
| 1816 | John E. Howard (1752–1827) | | Federalist | | Fmr. Senator | MD | 10% | Rufus King |
| 1824 | Nathan Sanford (1777–1838) | | Democratic-Republican | | State judge | NY | 11.5% | Henry Clay |
| 1824 | Nathaniel Macon (1757–1837) | | Democratic-Republican | | Senator | GA | 9.2% | William H. Crawford |
| 1828 | Richard Rush (1780–1859) | | National Republican | | Secretary of the Treasury | PA | 31.8% | John Quincy Adams |
| 1832 | John Sergeant 1779–1852 | | National Republican | | Fmr. Representative | PA | 17.1% | Henry Clay |
| 1836 | Francis Granger (1792–1868) | | Whig | | Representative | NY | 26.2% | William Henry Harrison |
| 1836 | John Tyler* (1790–1862) | | Whig | | Fmr. Senator | VA | 16% | Hugh Lawson White |
| 1840 | Richard M. Johnson* (1780–1850) | | Democratic | | Vice President | KY | 16.3% | Martin Van Buren |
| 1844 | Theodore Frelinghuysen (1787–1862) | | Whig | | Fmr. Senator | NJ | 38.2% | Henry Clay |
| 1848 | William O. Butler (1791–1880) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Representative | KY | 43.8% | Lewis Cass |
| 1852 | William A. Graham (1804–1875) | | Whig | | Secretary of the Navy | NC | 14.2% | Winfield Scott |
| 1856 | William L. Dayton (1807–1864) | | Republican | | Fmr. Senator | NJ | 38.5% | John C. Frémont |
| 1860 | Herschel V. Johnson (1812–1880) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Governor | GA | 4% | Stephen A. Douglas |
| 1864 | George H. Pendleton (1825–1889) | | Democratic | | Representative | OH | 9% | George B. McClellan |
| 1868 | Francis P. Blair Jr. (1821–1875) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Representative | MO | 25.2% | Horatio Seymour |
| 1872 | Benjamin G. Brown (1826–1885) | | Liberal Republican and Democratic | | Governor | MO | 13.4% | Horace Greeley |
| 1876 | Thomas A. Hendricks* (1819–1885) | | Democratic | | Governor | IN | 49.9% | Samuel Tilden |
| 1880 | William H. English (1822–1896) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Representative | IN | 42% | Winfield Scott Hancock |
| 1884 | John A. Logan (1826–1886) | | Republican | | Senator | IL | 45.4% | James G. Blaine |
| 1888 | Allen G. Thurman (1813–1895) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Senator | OH | 41.9% | Grover Cleveland |
| 1892 | Whitelaw Reid (1837–1912) | | Republican | | Fmr. Ambassador | NY | 32.7% | Benjamin Harrison |
| 1896 | Arthur Sewall (1835–1900) | | Democratic | | None | ME | 33.3% | William Jennings Bryan |
| 1900 | Adlai Stevenson I* (1835–1914) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Vice President | IL | 34.7% | William Jennings Bryan |
| 1904 | Henry G. Davis (1823–1916) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Senator | WV | 29.4% | Alton B. Parker |
| 1908 | John W. Kern (1849–1917) | | Democratic | | Fmr. state senator | IN | 33.5% | William Jennings Bryan |
| 1912 | James S. Sherman* (1855–1912) | | Republican | | Vice President | NY | 1.5% | William Howard Taft |
| 1916 | Charles W. Fairbanks* (1852–1918) | | Republican | | Fmr. Vice President | IN | 47.8% | Charles Evans Hughes |
| 1920 | Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Assistant Secretary of the Navy | NY | 23.9% | James M. Cox |
| 1924 | Charles W. Bryan (1867–1945) | | Democratic | | Governor | NE | 25.6% | John W. Davis |
| 1928 | Joseph T. Robinson (1872–1937) | | Democratic | | Senator | AR | 16.4% | Al Smith |
| 1932 | Charles Curtis* (1860–1936) | | Republican | | Vice President | KS | 11.1% | Herbert Hoover |
| 1936 | Frank Knox (1874–1944) | | Republican | | None | IL | 1.5% | Alf Landon |
| 1940 | Charles L. McNary (1874–1944) | | Republican | | Senator | OR | 15.4% | Wendell Willkie |
| 1944 | John W. Bricker (1893–1986) | | Republican | | Governor | OH | 18.6% | Thomas E. Dewey |
| 1948 | Earl Warren (1891–1974) | | Republican | | Governor | CA | 35.6% | Thomas E. Dewey |
| 1952 | John Sparkman (1899–1985) | | Democratic | | Senator | AL | 16.8% | Adlai Stevenson II |
| 1956 | Estes Kefauver (1903–1963) | | Democratic | | Senator | TN | 13.7% | Adlai Stevenson II |
| 1960 | Henry Cabot Lodge Jr. (1902–1985) | | Republican | | Fmr. Ambassador | MA | 40.8% | Richard Nixon |
| 1964 | William E. Miller (1914–1983) | | Republican | | Representative | NY | 9.7% | Barry Goldwater |
| 1968 | Edmund Muskie (1914–1996) | | Democratic | | Senator | ME | 35.5% | Hubert Humphrey |
| 1972 | Sargent Shriver (1915–2011) | | Democratic | | Fmr. Ambassador | MD | 3.2% | George McGovern |
| 1976 | Bob Dole (1923–2021) | | Republican | | Senator | KS | 44.8% | Gerald Ford |
| 1980 | Walter Mondale* (1928–2021) | | Democratic | | Vice President | MN | 9.1% | Jimmy Carter |
| 1984 | Geraldine Ferraro (1935–2011) | | Democratic | | Representative | NY | 2.4% | Walter Mondale |
| 1988 | Lloyd Bentsen (1921–2006) | | Democratic | | Senator | TX | 20.6% | Michael Dukakis |
| 1992 | Dan Quayle* (born 1947) | | Republican | | Vice President | IN | 31.2% | George H. W. Bush |
| 1996 | Jack Kemp (1935–2009) | | Republican | | Fmr. Secretary of HUD | NY | 29.6% | Bob Dole |
| 2000 | Joe Lieberman (1942–2024) | | Democratic | | Senator | CT | 49.4% | Al Gore |
| 2004 | John Edwards (born 1953) | | Democratic | | Senator | NC | 46.8% | John Kerry |
| 2008 | Sarah Palin (born 1964) | | Republican | | Governor | AK | 32.2% | John McCain |
| 2012 | Paul Ryan (born 1970) | | Republican | | Representative | WI | 38.3% | Mitt Romney |
| 2016 | Tim Kaine (born 1958) | | Democratic | | Senator | VA | 42.2% | Hillary Clinton |
| 2020 | Mike Pence* (born 1959) | | Republican | | Vice President | IN | 43.1% | Donald Trump |
| 2024 | Tim Walz (born 1964) | | Democratic | | Governor | MN | 42% | Kamala Harris |

### Major third parties and independents

These third party and independent candidates won at least ten percent of the electoral vote for vice president, or served as the main running mate to a third party or independent presidential candidate who won at least ten percent of the popular vote for president.
Free Soil       American       Southern Democratic       Constitutional Union        Progressive (1912)       Progressive (1924)       American Independent       Independent :
| Election | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Candidate | Running mate |
| Election | Candidate (Birth–death) | Candidate (Birth–death) | Party | Party | Office at time of election | Home state | EV% | Running mate |
| 1848 | Charles Francis Adams Sr. (1807–1886) | | Free Soil | | Fmr. state senator | MA | 0% | Martin Van Buren |
| 1856 | Andrew Jackson Donelson (1799–1871) | | American | | Fmr. Ambassador | TN | 2.7% | Millard Fillmore |
| 1860 | Joseph Lane (1801–1881) | | Southern Democratic | | Senator | OR | 23.8% | John C. Breckinridge |
| 1860 | Edward Everett (1794–1865) | | Constitutional Union | | Fmr. Secretary of State | MA | 12.9% | John Bell |
| 1912 | Hiram Johnson (1866–1945) | | Progressive | | Governor | CA | 16.6% | Theodore Roosevelt |
| 1924 | Burton K. Wheeler (1882–1975) | | Progressive | | Senator | MT | 2.4% | Robert La Follette |
| 1968 | Curtis LeMay (1906–1990) | | American Independent | | General | CA | 8.6% | George Wallace |
| 1992 | James Stockdale (1923–2005) | | Independent | | Vice Admiral | CA | 0% | Ross Perot |