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JD Vance Could Be The Youngest President In US History, With Trump Being The Oldest

Austin Smith

Published: November 26, 2024 8:17 am

Key Points:

• Roughly one-third of vice presidents end up later becoming presidents
• Often connected to the achievements or shortcomings of the president they worked under, vice presidents find it difficult to establish themselves as independent contenders.
• Two classic archetypes for vice presidents are rising talents and older statesmen. Pursuing the president has different challenges for everyone, including overcoming public tiredness with related governance.
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Transcript:

[00:00:00] Austin: Hello. I’m Austin Smith, joined by Michael Muir, our defense, military and politics expert at 24/7 Wall Street. Michael, I would love to talk about the 2024 election. I know there’s no shortage of coverage here, but there’s some maybe different angles that we haven’t seen discussed. And one that I obstructive stood out to me is that in the latter part of the election, this felt very much like the race of the veeps.

[00:00:20] Austin: You know, people had already made up their mind about their candidates relatively early in the campaign. And then suddenly you have J. D. Vance and Tim Walls on the scene, which prompted a lot of questions from us about, you know, and our readers and listeners about the roles that VPs play in the White House and the roles that they play in future politics.

[00:00:37] Austin: So I’m curious when you looked at the data here, What role did the vice presidency play in future presidencies? Because there are a lot of vice presidents who have gone on to become presidents, and there’s a lot of vice presidents who’ve tried to go on to become vice presidents and missed the train. So what did your data and research find?

[00:00:53] Michael Muir: Yeah, well, I thought that was, you know, when talked about a lot of the sort of post election, um, sort of naval gazing, and I just wanted to take a step back from the noise and just like, how does it fit into wider historical trends? Um, and we do find that the vice is, you know, the fundamental question that comes up in this. Taking this angle is is the vice presidency actually a good springboard for the presidency and the results are decidedly mixed. Um, you know, JD Vance will become the 50th vice president in terms of vice presidents who have gone on to become president, it’s slightly worse than 1 in 3 chance. There have been 15, um. I think our perception of, you know, the vice presidency being an effective way to become president might be clouded by the fact, of course, the sitting president took that route, but it’s not a terribly successful route, although many candidates have done. So, if we look at the 15, just as a group that have ascended, the main way, 8 of 15 is through the death of the sitting president.

[00:01:58] Austin: Mm hmm.

[00:02:00] Michael Muir: And although it hasn’t happened. Uh, in 61 years between, um, I think it was between 1840 and 1963, it happened alarmingly regularly. Uh, that’s actually when all eight presidents who died in office did die in office. It was about a 122 year period, um, where it happened with alarming regularity, but it hasn’t happened since. Um, if you want to be morbid, you know, we’re kind of overdue for it. Um, and then if you look at, you know, the president elect, he is past the median life expectancy age, just as Biden was, you know, it was not, it’s not an unreasonable question to ask. and then obviously there’s one president, uh, vice president, who ascended via, uh, resignation, Gerald Ford.

[00:02:38] Michael Muir: Ironically enough, he became vice president through, uh, resignation as well, and Spiro Agnew, resigned rather abruptly, um,

[00:02:45] Austin: So, so I just want to make sure that I understand the odds of what we’re talking about here. So, uh, many vice presidents have, you know, let’s say roughly a one in three roughly have gone on to become presidents. But of those half have been ascendancy through the death of the president, which obviously is not something not something we wish of any campaign, any administration.

[00:03:05] Michael Muir: we’re not saying that, but

[00:03:06] Austin: Right. Um, but Donald Trump is both, you know, he will be the oldest U. S. President. Um, health. He seems to be in good health outwardly, but he will be the oldest U. S. President. These are conversations that need to be had.

[00:03:20] Austin: Also,

[00:03:21] Michael Muir: yeah,

[00:03:22] Austin: may be, Donald Trump has already survived to assassination attempts famously.

[00:03:27] Austin: Um, so the there is A non zero chance that J. D. Vance will ascend to the presidency through the death of Donald Trump. Certainly not something this country wants or would hope for, but again, we need to, we need to talk about the reality of the situation given his age and the fact that he has already survived two assassination attempts.

[00:03:44] Austin: So,

[00:03:45] Michael Muir: now there? to interrupt. I just wanted to, before I forget to even mention this, if it happens within the next three years, JD Vance will be the youngest ever president. So we could go from the oldest to the youngest in the heartbeat, so to speak. So, um, that was an interesting possibility. Um, and then just parsing the data a little more. So we have eight via death, one via resignation, And of the remaining 6, that’s through being elected after having served as vice president. So you can see it’s not a terribly successful path. And then to further emphasize how difficult it is to become president in this manner, first 2, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, uh, were the vice presidents who went on to become president. And. Then there was a lot, that was before the passage of the 12th Amendment. So, you know, becoming Vice President through election was a little different. Uh, becoming, excuse me, becoming President and Vice President was a little different. Um, so after the 12th Amendment was ratified in we only have four former Vice Presidents who won the Presidency of the election. Martin W. And there was a huge gap over a century, and Richard Nixon, who of course lost his first bid for the presidency in 1960, then came back, um, then George H. W. Bush, and then finally Biden.

[00:04:59] Michael Muir: Um,

[00:05:00] Austin: so ascendancy, uh, seems to be less and less likely for vice presidential candidates with, you know, thank goodness, you know, the, the hard work of agencies like the secret service, keeping the president safe. But it is not a zero factor. So as, as we observe vi, you know, president Biden was first a vice president.

[00:05:18] Austin: Kamala Harris was obviously is vice president, but did not make the ascendancy. So it would seem that. VPs are less likely to become president now, but it is not zero. I mean, there’s still a reasonable chance.

[00:05:31] Michael Muir: yes, yes. The, uh, see, I think there’s, it’s a double edged sword becoming vice president if you have presidential advan uh, uh, Aspirations. So I think generally, we see there are kind of two flavors of vice president. You have the sort of rising star.

[00:05:45] Austin: Mm hmm.

[00:05:45] Michael Muir: and then you have the elder statesman. That’s generally what they fall into. So I think we can say JD Vance falls into the former, the first category of rising star. And then Joe Biden, when he was vice president for Barack Obama was certainly the elder statesman.

[00:05:59] Austin: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:06:04] Michael Muir: but still, at least compared to Biden, I mean, anybody compared to Biden is going to be a lot younger. Um, but I, I think if a vice president ascends via death, they have a pretty good chance of going on to win election. but if they see out a term as vice president and then seek election in their own merits, that is not a very successful path historically. Um, so Kamala Harris is obviously, you know. The most recent, um, but you know, in living memory, we have, know, Al Gore and Al Gore encapsulates the problem that vice presidents have, um, becoming president is one emerging from the shadow of the president they served under, um, two, they’re going to be tethered to that administration warts and all.

[00:06:44] Michael Muir: So Al Gore was experiencing back in 2000, and again, some, uh, our audience would be familiar with this The scandals that kind of rocked this, that overshadowed the second uh, for Bill Clinton, you know, Al Gore, although he didn’t necessarily have a part in those is still caught up with that.

[00:07:00] Michael Muir: And then there’s this Linton fatigue in 2000 people kind of, and again, that’s also the third problem is if you have a president who served two terms, people don’t generally want more of the same, you know, they,

[00:07:12] Michael Muir: they get a little tired and they want to change. Sometimes they can, know, kind of squeeze another term out of that. administration, just like the first Bush did, you know, I think Reagan’s popularity kind of rubbed off on him and he managed to, to gain another term. And then Gore, obviously it was a very narrow loss. We should point to that the close, one of the closest ever

[00:07:30] Austin: Mm hmm. Mm

[00:07:33] Michael Muir: that difficulty of differentiating. I think he went too far in distancing himself from is sort of the classic VEEP problem is. You know, becoming their own person, it is a fantastic way to rise up, but it just seems to be getting over the top,

[00:07:47] Austin: Right

[00:07:48] Michael Muir: for vice presidents.

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