What us vps became president?

Answer 1

13 VP's have became presidents. 8 of those were assigned the office after the president died in office, and 5 of those were VP's that later went on to become President in a later election. The 8 1. John Tyler became President after William Henry Harrison died of the common cold. 2. Millard Fillmore became President after Zachary Taylor died from gastroenteritis. 3. Andrew Johnson became President after Abraham Lincoln was assassinated. 4. Chester Alan Arthur became President after James A. Garfield was assassinated. 5. Theodore Roosevelt became President after William McKinley was assassinated. 6. Calvin Coolidge became President after Warren G. Harding died from what initially was thought to be food poisoning, but remains in speculation. 7. Harry Truman became President after Franklin Roosevelt died from a cerebral hemorrhage. 8. Lyndon Johnson became President after John F. Kennedy Jr. was assassinated.

The 5 VPs who were elected in their own right fit into 3 groups. The 1st group includes John Adams & Thomas Jefferson. John Adams was VP under George Washington & suceeded him as president. Jefferson was VP under Adams. This group is different because of the way the Constitutional process was set up at the time.

At that time, the VP was 1 of the candidates for president. They became the VP because they got the 2nd largest number of votes in the Electoral College. By the time John Adams was elected president, parties had developed. Adams did have a running mate for VP. But because of the way the Constitution was written the VP was technically a candidate for President. That is why Jefferson, who was the Democratic-Republican candidate for president, became VP, he beat out Adams running mate Thomas Pinckney. Then 4 years later when he was elected, it was actually by the House of Representatives due to his running mate, Aaron Burr, getting the same number of votes in the Electoral College as he did. The 12th Amendment (1804) changed it to the system we have today.

The other 3 VPs who became president fit into 2 groups. 2 of them were elected as successors to the president they were serving under. The 3rd was elected president 8 years after he left the office of VP.

Richard Nixon has an interesting place on the VP to president road. Obviously there is the Gerald Ford connection. He 1st ran in 1960 while serving under Ike. He lost to JFK. Then he was elected 8 years later by beating Hubert Humphrey, the sitting VP at the time. Nixon is the only VP to win after losing the 1st time he ran.

The other 2 VPs were elected to the presidency as successor to the president they served under. The 1st was Martin Van Buren who was elected in 1836 to suceed Andrew Jackson. It wasn't until 1988, 132 years later, when George H. W. Bush was elected to succeed Ronald Reagan that it happenned again.