The vice presidency looks like the shortest path to the top job in American politics. In reality, it’s one of the hardest leaps to make.
Since George Washington took office in 1789, 49 people served as vice president through 2021 — and only 15 of them ever became president. Even more telling: most didn’t win the office at the ballot box. Eight moved up only after a president died, one took over after a resignation, and just six were elected president in their own right.
In other words, the “second-highest office in the land” has more often been a dead end than a launching pad. Here’s the full list of the men who beat the odds, how each one got there, and what they did once they had the keys to the White House.
Quick stat: The U.S. Senate keeps the official roster of every vice president. You can verify the full list here: senate.gov — Vice Presidents of the United States.
Why the VP job rarely leads to the presidency
Political scientists have a blunt explanation for the gap. Vice presidents are actually pretty good at winning their party’s nomination — they just tend to lose the general election that follows. Think of Hubert Humphrey (Lyndon Johnson’s VP), Walter Mondale (Jimmy Carter’s VP), and Al Gore (Bill Clinton’s VP). All three captured the Democratic nomination. All three came up short in November.
Part of the problem is the nature of the role itself. The job is designed to keep you in the background, deferring to the president. Pivoting from loyal number two to commanding number one is a tough sell to voters.
One pattern does seem to help: waiting. Two of the three modern VPs who eventually won the presidency did it after a break from the office — running as fresh challengers rather than tied-to-the-incumbent sidekicks. Richard Nixon and Joe Biden both took that route.
Now, the 15 who made it.
John Adams & Thomas Jefferson — the founding-era succession
Washington cruised to victory in the first presidential election of 1789 with 69 electoral votes. Under the rules of the day, the runner-up became vice president — and that was John Adams, a Federalist lawyer and diplomat from Massachusetts. Adams won the top job outright in 1796.
The twist: his own runner-up was rival Thomas Jefferson, leaving the country with a president and vice president from opposing parties. Jefferson bided his time and won the bitter, mudslinging election of 1800.
Martin Van Buren — the operator who climbed the machine
A shrewd New York politician, Martin Van Buren served as Andrew Jackson’s Secretary of State before becoming his vice president during Jackson’s second term (1833–1837). He proved a master at surviving the infighting of the Jackson White House. Running as a Democrat in 1836, he beat three separate Whig candidates. His single term went south when the economy cratered, and Whig challenger William Henry Harrison ousted him in 1840.
John Tyler — 31 days from ceremony to command
John Tyler, a former Virginia congressman and senator, joined the 1840 Whig ticket as Harrison’s running mate, expecting a quiet, ceremonial job. Fate had other plans. Just 31 days into the term, Harrison died of pneumonia — and Tyler became the first vice president in U.S. history to step up after a sitting president’s death.
Rather than treat himself as a caretaker, Tyler moved into the White House and insisted he was the real president, not merely “acting.” That bold claim set the precedent for every succession that followed, eventually written into the 25th Amendment.
Millard Fillmore — the compromise pick who inherited a crisis
When the Whigs nominated General Zachary Taylor in 1848, they balanced the ticket with Millard Fillmore, a northerner meant to reassure the party’s abolitionists. The two didn’t even meet until after the election, and they didn’t get along — Taylor froze Fillmore out entirely. But when Taylor died in office in 1850 (possibly of cholera), Fillmore was suddenly in charge. His unpopular tenure helped sink the Whig Party, and he lost his 1856 comeback bid.
Andrew Johnson — from succession to impeachment
A Tennessee Democrat who backed the Union despite his states’-rights views, Andrew Johnson was tapped by Abraham Lincoln in 1864 to balance a wartime “Union” ticket. When Lincoln was assassinated in 1865, Johnson — who had also been targeted in the plot — became president.
His clashes with Congress made history for the wrong reasons. In 1868 he became the first president ever impeached, with the House voting 126 to 47 to send him to trial. He survived removal in the Senate by a single vote.
Chester A. Arthur — the machine man who surprised everyone
A former New York port tariff collector with a reputation for patronage politics, Chester A. Arthur (a Vermont native) was added to James Garfield’s 1880 ticket for regional balance. After Garfield was fatally shot by assassin Charles Guiteau in 1881, Arthur took over.
Critics braced for a party hack. Instead, Arthur embraced reform — though he also signed the discriminatory Chinese Exclusion Act into law. His own party denied him the nomination in 1884.
Theodore Roosevelt — the “accidental” reformer
Republican bosses thought they were sidelining the restless, reform-minded New York governor when they slotted Theodore Roosevelt onto William McKinley’s 1900 ticket. Then McKinley was assassinated in 1901, and the man they tried to neutralize was running the country.
Roosevelt won a landslide of his own in 1904 and launched his sweeping “Square Deal” — regulating industry, expanding social programs, and setting aside 200 million acres of wilderness for preservation. After leaving office, he split with hand-picked successor William Howard Taft and mounted a losing third-party run in 1912.
Calvin Coolidge — sworn in by his own father
Calvin Coolidge, another Vermonter, had climbed from lieutenant governor to governor of Massachusetts before joining Warren Harding’s 1920 ticket. When Harding died of a heart attack in 1923, Coolidge took the oath in the middle of the night — administered by his father, a justice of the peace. He won reelection in 1924 under the slogan “Keep Cool with Coolidge,” championed tax cuts for the wealthy, and quietly declined to run again in 1928.
Harry S. Truman — thrown into history unprepared
Harry S. Truman, a plainspoken Missouri senator, became vice president in January 1945 for FDR’s fourth term. He was largely kept out of the loop — never briefed on the atomic bomb — when Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, dropping enormous decisions squarely on Truman’s shoulders.
He rose to the moment. Truman oversaw the end of World War II, made the momentous call to use atomic weapons on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and shaped the postwar world through the Marshall Plan, the Truman Doctrine, and the creation of NATO.
Lyndon B. Johnson — sworn in on Air Force One
Texas power broker and Senate majority leader Lyndon B. Johnson joined John F. Kennedy’s ticket in 1960, then spent his vice presidency with little real influence. Everything changed when Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas in 1963. Riding just two cars back in the motorcade, LBJ was unhurt — and took the oath aboard Air Force One that afternoon.
He won a crushing victory over Barry Goldwater in 1964 and used the mandate to reshape American life: Medicare, major education funding, and landmark civil rights laws banning discrimination in voting, commerce, and housing. But his escalation of the Vietnam War turned toxic, and he chose not to seek reelection in 1968.
Richard M. Nixon — the comeback and the collapse
Richard Nixon served as Dwight Eisenhower’s vice president from 1953 to 1961, then narrowly lost the 1960 election to Kennedy. Written off politically, he engineered a stunning comeback, winning a three-way 1968 race against Hubert Humphrey and segregationist George Wallace, then a 1972 landslide over George McGovern.
His record includes ending the military draft, founding the Environmental Protection Agency, and opening relations with China. But the Watergate scandal destroyed him, and in 1974 he became the first president ever to resign.
Gerald R. Ford — the only president elected to neither office
Michigan congressman Gerald Ford reached the White House by an unprecedented path. He was appointed vice president in 1973 after Spiro Agnew resigned in disgrace, then became president in 1974 when Nixon quit rather than face a Senate trial. That makes Ford the only person to hold both offices without ever being elected to either. A month into the job, he pardoned Nixon — a deeply unpopular move that likely cost him the 1976 election to Jimmy Carter.
George H.W. Bush — the résumé president
Few candidates arrived better credentialed than George H.W. Bush: WWII Navy aviator, two-term congressman, UN ambassador, RNC chairman, envoy to China, and CIA director — plus two terms as Ronald Reagan’s vice president. He handily beat Michael Dukakis in 1988.
Bush presided over the end of the Cold War and led the international coalition that drove Iraqi forces out of Kuwait. But a sagging economy and a charismatic rival named Bill Clinton ended his presidency at one term in 1992. Historians have since grown kinder to his legacy.
Joe Biden — third time was the charm
Joe Biden spent decades in the Senate and ran for president twice without success before Barack Obama picked him as running mate in 2008. He sat out the 2016 race, partly grieving the cancer death of his son Beau. In 2020, he assembled a broad, multiracial coalition and won the White House with more than 81 million votes — the most ever cast for a presidential candidate.
The bottom line
Fifteen men. Two and a half centuries. And most of them reached the Oval Office through tragedy or timing rather than a straight victory lap from the number-two chair. The vice presidency may sit one heartbeat from the presidency — but history shows that stepping fully into the role is anything but guaranteed.
By Ellis Monroe | Politics & U.S. History