Balanced Ticket

PRESIDENTIAL AND VICE presidential nominees do not run for office separately. They run together as a partisan team on what is generally called a ticket. Therefore, a vote for a party's presidential candidate is a simultaneous vote for its vice presidential candidate. Balancing a ticket involves filling the vice presidential slot. Historically, the selection of a vice-presidental nominee had little to do with finding the most able, experienced person who could, if necessary, assume the president's duties. Because the vice presidency is a constitutionally weak, largely ceremonial office, electoral considerations have commonly been paramount.

Party leaders, convention delegates, and the presidential nominees themselves (since at least 1960) have typically selected someone who could “balance” the national party ticket. To win additional votes, the ideal choice is someone who possesses certain voter-valued personal qualities or demographic traits that the presidential nominee lacks. Because no presidential nominee could ever embody all the characteristics valued in a president, balancing provides parties the opportunity to fill some of those gaps and provide symbolic cues to various constituencies that their votes are desired. A balanced ticket, then, is a campaign strategy used by parties and candidates to improve electoral performance.

Among the most common “balancing” qualities looked for in a running mate is regional affiliation. For much of its history, the Democratic Party was divided between north and south. Consequently, in the spirit of national and party unity, a northerner and a southerner were chosen to run together. Prior to the Civil War, from 1796 to 1860, virtually every ticket had this sort of regional balance. The lone exception was the all-south 1828 ticket.

The short-lived Federalist and Whig parties also tended to follow this formulation. It was not until the rise of the Republican Party in the 1850s that regional balancing would take different forms. With its inaugural ticket in 1856, the Republicans fielded the first east coast and west coast ticket. Afterwards, akin to the earlier all-northern Liberty and Free Soil minor party tickets, the usual Republican ticket was balanced between the northeast and midwest. Except for the 1864 Unionist war ticket, a southern resident would not be included until 1980. After the Civil War and the south's defeat, Democrats imitated the Republican regional method. No southerner (unless he moved north, such as Wood-row Wilson, or came from a border state) would serve again on a ticket until 1928. Through 2004, Democrats have mostly returned to their antebellum behavior, fielding a version of the north-south ticket 12 more times. Other than region, running mates have been [Page 52]chosen to bridge intraparty factions. For instance, a presidential nominee from the more ideological wing of the parties might choose a running mate from the parties' respective moderate, centrist wings, or vice-versa. Or, after a bruising primary contest, a presidential nominee might select the candidate who finished second in the nomination contest. Over the years, many presidential nominations have gone to state governors with little or no Washington experience. Thus, to balance the ticket, the party or the nominee would chose a political insider. Sometimes, for multigenerational appeal, age is considered. An older nominee may be balanced with a more youthful, attractive-looking politician. Parties have also considered military heroism to tap patriotic sentiments.

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