Some trivia on the political careers of ex-VP nominees

If Sarah Palin wins her race for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives from Alaska, she will be the first major party candidate to vice president to return to public office since 1934.

While many vice presidential candidates held on to the jobs they were holding at the time of their nomination – including U.S. Senator Tim Kaine (2016), Paul Ryan (2012 and Estes Kefauver (1956) — the list of VP candidates to run for something else and win in shorter.

Geraldine Ferraro, who have up her House seat to run with Walter Mondale in 1984, lost two Democratic primaries for U.S. Senate in New York.  Thomas Dewey’s 1944 running mate, John Bricker, won a U.S. Senate seat in 1946.

Frank Knox, a newspaper publisher who ran on Alfred Landon’s ticket in 1936 against incumbents Franklin Roosevelt and John Nance Garner, as named U.S. Secretary of the Navy by FDR in 1940.    Other defeated VP candidates were appointed to top posts: Earl Warren (1948) became chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court; Henry Cabot Lodge (1960) was the U.S. Ambassador to Vietnam; Edmund Muskie (1968) was named U.S. Secretary of State in 1980; and Lloyd Bentsen (1988) was later nominated as U.S. Secretary of the Treasury.

The 1924 Democratic nominee for vice president was Nebraska Gov. Charles W. Bryan, whose brother had been his party’s nominee for president three times.  His political comeback began with unsuccessful bids for governor in 1926 and 1928, followed by winning gubernatorial races in 1930 and 1932.  Bryan lost a U.S. Senate race in 1934, a campaign for governor in 1938, for a Nebraska congressional seat in 149, and for governor in 1942.   Bryan also returned to this post as mayor of Lincoln from 1935 to 1937.

Roosevelt, who lost a bid for vice president in 1920 – he ran with James Cox against Warren Harding and Calvin Coolidge – but became governor of New York in 1928 and president in 1932.

Multiple losing VP candidates went on to run for president — John Edwards, Joe Lieberman, Sargent Shriver, Muskie and Warren – but without success.

Bob Dole remained in the U.S. Senate for 20 years after his 1976 vice presidential campaign, running for president three times.  Adlai Stevenson’s 1952 running mate, John Sparkman, continued to represent Alabama in the U.S. Senate for 26 years.

Mondale was elected vice president in 1976, lost re-election in 1980, sought the presidency in 1984, and later served as U.S. Ambassador to Japan.  When U.S. Senator Paul Wellstone was killed in an airplane crash eleven days before the 2002 election, Minnesota Democrats nominated Mondale as their replacement candidate.  He lost by two percentage points.

The 2002 race made Mondale the only person in U.S. history to lose all 50 states during their political career.  He had served as state attorney general and U.S. Senator before he became vice president and won his home state when he ran against Ronald Reagan in 1984.

Some defeated non-incumbent candidates for the vice presidency, including Jack Kemp (1996) and William E. Miller (1964), never ran for office again.

Palin was the governor of Alaska when John McCain picked her as his running mate in 2008.  She resigned in mid-2009.