Monday, May 19, 2008

VP Losing Home State

So who will be the VP nominees for each party? Much has been made about whether a VP nominee can carry his or her home state.

Looking back over the past 40 years, the winning VP candidate has always carried his home state. (The losing candidate has not.)

2004 - Cheney - Wyoming
2000 - Cheney - Wyoming (Also, Lieberman carried Connecticut)
1996 - Gore - Tennessee
1992 - Gore - Tennessee
1988 - Quayle - Indiana
1984 - Bush - Texas
1980 - Bush - Texas
1976 - Mondale - Minnesota
1972 - Agnew - Maryland

The last time that that a winning VP candidate did not carry his home state was 1968, when sitting Maryland Governor Spiro Agnew failed to win his home state of Maryland. (The Nixon/Agnew ticket lost by 20,000 votes, compared to 178,000 for independent candidate George Wallace, so we'll never know what would have happened in a two-way race.)

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