… for the purposes of strengthening the president’s chances at winning? So, I’m not referring to something like what happened with Spiro Agnew, but rather what’s discussed here, where it’s suggested that Cheney be replaced by Powell or McCain.
I think this has been discussed here before. I think that both Lincoln and Roosevelt had switched VP candidates at re-election. There may have been others. Let me see if I can scare up that thread…
20th Century examples.
Nelson Rockefeller was Gerald Ford’s original Vice-President. He was replaced in the 1976 campaign by Bob Dole.
Franklin Roosevelt had three Vice Presidents – John Nance Garner, replaced by Henry Wallace, replaced by Harry Truman.
And let’s not forget George McGovern and Thomas Eagleton in 1972.
Whether all those changes were strictly “for the purposes of strengthening the president’s chances at winning” I’ll leave to political historians.
Abraham Lincoln’s first Vice President was Hannibal Hamlin, an abolitionist Republican from Maine. Lincoln replaced him on the ticket in 1864 with Andrew Johnson, a Tennessee Democrat. I’m not sure whether Lincoln thought Johnson would help the ticket, or if this was mainly a symbolic gesture, to show the Confederate states that he was prepared to be magnanimous in victory, and that he would seek reconciliation with the South.
Aaron Burr was dumped by Jefferson in 1804 because he tried to take the 1800 election from Jefferson. That election, in which Burr was supposed to be Jefferson’s V.P. candidate, was decided in the House of Representatives because no candidate received a majority of the electoral votes. Instead of stepping aside, he lobbied for the top spot. He was replaced in 1804 by George Clinton.
Schuyler Colfax failed to win renomination on Grant’s Republican ticket in 1872, because he was implicated in the Crédit Mobilier scandal. He was replaced by Henry Wilson.
Thanks all.
As a Canadian, I’m pretty ignorant about this … although I should have remmbered the Rockefeller/Dole switch.
I guess this must be before he founded Parliament.
RR
Funkadelic! 
[nitpick]Eagleton wasn’t an incumbent VP…[/nitpick]
True enough, but he was dumped in the middle of a campaign in order to make the candidate more electable. Fat lot of good it did!
See these threads:
Have US vice-presidents ever been changed for the second term ?
Richard M. Johnson is an interesting case I just read about in Fall From Grace: Sex, Scandal, and Corruption in American Politics from 1702 to the Present by Shelley Ross. He was elected as Van Buren’s vice president in 1836. Before that election he admitted fathering two children by his black mistress. Though Van Buren was elected by a clear majority of the electoral college, Johnson missed getting a majority by one vote. The choice was thrown into the Senate, which elected Johnson. While VP, he had two more black mistresses, one of whom he accompanied to Washington social events. The resulting scandal led the Democrats not to renominate him in 1840, though he ran for vice president anyway without official party support. Van Buren and Johnson lost to Harrison and Tyler in 1840.
Just in passing, John C. Calhoun and John Nance Garner were not “dumped” but rather refused to run again as part of the same ticket, owing to serious disagreements with the President under whom they’d served as Veep.
Wait a minute. Isn’t that misleading about Burr being Jefferson’s VP candidate in 1800? In 1800, the Veep was whoever came in second in the presidential electoral college vote. Burr was running for pres in that election, not VP.
Since the adoption of the Twelfth Amendment, we have had the following cases where an incumbent President was nominated for re-election but a surviving vice-presidential incumbent was not:
1804–Jefferson renominated by the Democratic-Republican caucus, Aaron Burr dropped, in retaliation for Burr declining to remove himself from the tied election of 1800.
1832–Andrew Jackson renominated by Democratic convention, John Calhoun never considered for renomination after having broken with Jackson over nullification.
1840–The ambiguous case involving Richard M. Johnson described above.
1864–Lincoln renominated by Republican convention, Hannibal Hamlin dropped and replaced by Andrew Johnson. This was clearly done to “strengthen the president’s chances of winning”. Note, however, that in this era vice presidential candidates were picked by conventions with little if any input from the presidential candidate.
1872–Grant renominated, Colfax dropped because of scandal.
1892–Benjamin Harrison renominated, Levi Parsons dropped primarily because of Republican dissatisfaction with his rulings as presiding officer in the Senate.
1940–FDR renominated, John Nance Garner dropped and replaced with Henry Wallace after having broken with Roosevelt and sought the presidential nomination.
1944–FDR renominated, Wallace dropped and replaced with Harry Truman–partly to strengthen the ticket and partly because party leaders didn’t want him to become president upon FDR’s likely early death.
1976–Ford nominated for a full term, Rockefeller dropped–or dropped out, depending on whom you ask. Did Rocky jump before being pushed? He always denied it, but we can’t say for sure. By this time, presidential candidates were hand-picking their running mates, and Ford chose Bob Dole.
So the answer to the OP is “Yes, but not since presidents began hand-picking their running mates, with the possible exception of 1976, which was a special case because neither Ford nor Rockefeller had run on a national ticket before.”
I think you mean Levi Parsons Morton, not Levi Parsons. Partly the problem was that he was “too neutral” when presiding over the Senate. Partly it was that he was a Blaine ally, and Blaine had tried to take the nomination from Harrison.
Strictly speaking, yes. But Jefferson was intended to be the presidential and Burr the vice presidential candidate of the Republican party, just as Adams was intended to be the presidential and Pinckney the vice presidential candidate of the Federalist party. The four candidates were chose by party caucuses in Congress.
Burr was not the only one hoping to grab the presidency in 1800 through the unwieldy electoral college process. Hamilton was hoping that his ally Pinckney would beat or tie Adams. Of course both Federalists lost, but Pinckney in fact received one vote less than Adams because one of the electors voted for John Jay instead.
Evidently I was wrong. Morton’s replacement was Whitelaw Reid, who was at least as strong a Blaine supporter as Morton.