Does anyone know if their could be a President and Vice-President of two different politcal parties? And if so How?
yes, it happened early on in the countries history. the winner was pres., the loser vice pres.
It was a possibility in the last election. If neither candidate had won a majority of the electoral votes, the selection would have been made by Congress. But although the President in such a case is chosen by the House, the Vice President is chosen by the Senate. If the election had gone to Congess, and the Democrats had won a clear majority in the Senate, then George W. Bush could well have been elected President with Leiberman as his Vice-President.
Until the 12th amendment was adopted prior to the 1804 election, the vice president was just the guy who finished second in the electoral votes.
In 1796 John Adams, a Federalist, finished first and Thomas Jefferson, a Republican, finished second.
This turned out to be not a good thing. After Jefferson and Burr tied in 1800 and had an uneasy relationship (to put it mildly) despite being members of the same party, the concept of running the president and vice-president as a slate started, although it didn’t really take hold until 1844.
John Calhoun served as VP for both JQ Adams and Jackson and he really wasn’t in political accord with either. Tyler was on the ticket with Harrison, but he was so un-Whig like that we was formally read out of the party by Henry Clay.
Theoretically, since the electors are free agents, they could choose a president and vice-president of different parties. Also, if the election goes to Congress, the House chooses the president and the Senate chooses the VP and it’s possible, like now, that Congress could be split and you could have another mess on your hands.
Andrew Johnson was a Democratic VP under Republican President Abraham Lincoln. They actually ran together on the same ticket (“Union”) in 1864.
Remember that the Electors can vote for whomever they please. Because the electors are chosen by popular vote today, they most often vote for the candidates from their party. But if they got really pissed off at the VP candidate for whatever reason, there’s nothing that says they have to vote for that guy for VP.