Vice President of the United States
Second-highest constitutional office in the United States
Summary
The vice president of the United States is the second-highest office in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government, after the president of the United States, and ranks first in the presidential line of succession. The vice president is also an officer in the legislative branch, as the president of the Senate. In this capacity, the vice president is empowered to preside over the United States Senate, but may not vote except to cast a tie-breaking vote. The vice president is elected at the same time as the president to a four-year term of office by the people of the United States through the Electoral College, but the electoral votes are cast separately for these two offices. Following the passage in 1967 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, a vacancy in the office of vice president may be filled by presidential nomination and confirmation by a majority vote in both houses of Congress. This was based on the Tyler Precedent set in 1841 when John Tyler became the first vice president to take over for a deceased president following the death of William Henry Harrison.
Originally created by RjLesch
12/17/2001, 7:00:51 PM
Modified
5/28/2026, 4:13:38 AM
Recent revisions
Standardized US to U.S.
prose flowed better before as Mondale should be noted among those who lost a presidential election, and separated from the others because he did not lose as an incumbent VP
/* Successor to the U.S. president */ improve prose; slight rearr of list order less stilted
Reverted 1 edit by [[Special:Contributions/Iqosaynv|Iqosaynv]] ([[User talk:Iqosaynv|talk]]) to last revision by Ziv
([[c:GR|GR]]) [[c:COM:Duplicate|Duplicate]]: [[File:Portrait of Vice President JD Vance (cropped 3x4).jpg]] → [[File:March 2026 Official Vice Presidential Portrait of JD Vance (3x4 cropped).jpg]] Exact or scaled-down duplicate: [[c::File:March 2026 Official Vice Presidential Portrait of JD Vance (3x4 cropped).jpg]]
updated official portrait
Reverted 1 edit by [[Special:Contributions/Muaza Husni|Muaza Husni]] ([[User talk:Muaza Husni|talk]]): Redundant as there is a navbox containing links to all presidential and vice presidential list articles
/* References */ List of vice presidents of the United States who ran for president
/* Term of office */
/* Presiding over electoral vote counts */
/* 19th and early 20th centuries */
Either the current practice begain in 1929 or 1933. Which is it?
VP is most widely used
