The myth of favorite son and daughter vice presidents

Conventional wisdom pervades presidential politics, and  it is again true this year. With Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump closing in on their parties’ presidential nominations, speculation has turned to their vice-presidential picks.  Suggestions for Trump include John Kasich, Rick Scott, or Scott Walker to capture the critical swing states of Ohio, Florida, and Texas, while for Clinton recommendations include Martin Heinrich, John Hickenlooper, or Tim Kaine from New Mexico, Colorado, and Virginia, three other swing states. Among “old politicians’ tales” are that the selection of a vice-presidential candidate as a favorite son (or daughter) will deliver a state’s electoral votes to a presidential ticket.  Is there any evidence to support this belief? 

I have examined the impact that vice-presidential picks have in terms of helping candidates and parties hold or flip states. Contrary to popular wisdom held by politicians and the press, there is no vice-presidential  favorite son or daughter bump.

{mosads}Facially, evidence suggests that a vice-presidential candidate might be useful in terms of helping a candidate with the Veep’s home state.  Clinton did win Tennessee in 1992 and 1996 with Gore on the ticket after Bush won the state in 1988.

However, Lloyd Bentsen did not bring Texas over to Dukakis in 1988 and in 1980 Carter would have won Minnesota regardless of Mondale, George H.W. Bush would have won Indiana without Quayle, and George W. Bush would have won Wyoming without Cheney. Obama won Delaware in 2008 with Biden on the ticket but Kerry also won the state in 2004 with John Edwards (who failed to win his home state of North Carolina).

Proof of vice-presidents who deliver their home states seems mixed, yet containing enough examples or evidence of flips to give the favorite son factor some credence.  Yet more systematic analysis fails to find support for this phenomena.

Consider vice-presidential selection for the Democrats and Republicans from 1948 to 2012 in which there were 17 presidential elections, yielding 34 state contests to examine the vice-presidential factor. In 1972 both of the vice-presidential candidates were from Maryland, producing a win and a loss. In those 34 races, the party of the vice-president won 24 or 70.5% of the contests and lost 10.  This would seem to be powerful evidence for the favorite son factor.

Yet look at the flip factor–did the party of the vice-president change the result from the previous election–then there are only six examples of flips (17.6%). These are in 1952, 1956, 1960, 1976, 1980, and 1992 where the presence of favorite sons appeared to flip the state’s popular vote from the previous election. There was also one counterflip, in 1960 where the presence of Henry Cabot Lodge’s appearance as the Republican vice-presidential nominee for Richard Nixon did not produce a win. Part of the reason why Nixon-Lodge lost the state was perhaps that Massachusetts was the home state to John Kennedy, the Democratic presidential winner.

Six examples of flips and one counterflip provide flimsy evidence of a favorite son factor.  But perhaps a favorite son vice-president makes a state more competitive and therefore even if the party of the vice-president does not win it, it forces the opposing party to devote more resources to the state in the hope of holding it.

For the Democrats, from 1948 to 2012, they received a mean of 48.08% of the popular vote in the home state of their vice-presidential nominee compared to 46.74% nationally, a difference of 1.34%.  For the Republicans the numbers were 51.77% and 48.83% respectively, a difference of 2.94%.2  Facially, it looks like favorite sons make a difference but  statistical tests indicate no difference.

Finally perhaps evidence of a favorite son or daughter impact needs to be examined in terms of a change in popular vote in a state relative to changes in the national popular vote.  One would again expect Republican presidential candidates to do better in the states of their vice-presidential picks in years when they won the presidency.  The same would be true for Democrats.   

For Democrats comparing the average change in popular vote in a state from the election before one of their citizens was the vice-presidential pick to that election where it was the average gain was 5.3% compared to a national number of -0.13 %. Keep in mind that this average was distorted by the fact in 1948 Truman and  Democrats did not appear on the ballot in Alabama, the state from which the 1952 Democratic  vice-presidential candidate John Sparkman hailed. In 1948 Strom Thurmond’s States Rights Democratic Party appeared on the ballot in Alabama instead of Truman and the Democratic Party. But even with that distortion that exaggerated a favorite son advantage in Alabama in  1952,  the difference is not statistically significant.

For the Republicans, comparing the average change in popular vote in a state from the election before one of their citizens was the vice-presidential pick to that election where it was the average gain was 0.7% compared to a national number of 0.99 %.   Again statistically not significant.

There is little evidence that vice-presidential candidates have an impact as favorite son candidates in terms of either flipping states or rendering them more competitive.  It is one of several myths that do more to capture the attention of the media and politicians than  actually produce real political results.

David Schultz is a Professor of Political Science at Hamline University in St. Paul, MN, and author of Presidential Swing States: Why Ten Only Matter.