Eight more times, death and resignation of presidents have handed the office to VPs. Two presidents who might have done much to ease racial and sectional discord—Abraham Lincoln and James Garfield—were assassinated. Lincoln’s successor, Andrew Johnson, exacerbated racial and sectional discord, and Garfield’s successor, Chester Arthur, focused on other things. Two decades later, William McKinley’s assassination removed a cautious conservative from office and replaced him with Theodore Roosevelt—a wide-eyed Progressive who favored a greatly expanded role for government and paved the way for the most destructive president in U.S. history—Woodrow Wilson, who held seething contempt for both African Americans and the U.S. Constitution. The Harding-to-Coolidge and Roosevelt-to-Truman successions offered no great ideological shifts. John Kennedy would likely have been more cautious and restrained in expanding the federal government than the power-drenched Lyndon Johnson proved to be. No mortality was involved in the shift from Richard Nixon to Gerald Ford—but the latter was chosen specifically because Nixon’s days were numbered and both parties viewed Gerald Ford as an acceptable soon-to-be president.

With the 2024 election shaping up as a rematch of two elderly candidates, Americans would do well to look closely at the vice presidential nominees of both parties.