Resolves N/A if Harris wins the 2024 election (or if she’s not the nominee for some reason).
General policy for my markets: In the rare event of a conflict between my resolution criteria and the agreed-upon common-sense spirit of the market, I may resolve it according to the market's spirit or N/A, probably after discussion.
Good point. Without prejudging the direction this will shift things, a couple of factors occur to me:
Incumbent VPs who lose re-election should be quite different from non-incumbent VP candidates who lose.
Older VPs should be less likely to have future campaigns.
We've seen former VP picks for whom the losing campaign was definitely not why they failed to secure the nomination. (We'll go through several.)
So let's go backward in time through the primary era, looking at how closely the situation would mirror today's candidates.
2020: Mike Pence was an incumbent VP. And now he's persona non grata in Trump's GOP.
2016: Where the hell did Tim Kaine go? He didn't declare for the 2020 campaign.
2012: I think Paul Ryan was planning to run in 2016 and would have had a strong chance, but then in 2015 the Speaker position was handed to him on a platter.
2008: Sarah Palin considered running in 2012, but decided not to.
2004: John Edwards had a great shot at the 2008 nomination... until the National Enquirer started reporting on his affair.
2000: Joe Lieberman ran in 2004 but was too conservative to win a primary.
1996: Jack Kemp was 61 on Election Day. He didn't run in 2000.
1992: Dan Quayle was an incumbent VP, and not a popular one. He ran in 2000 and failed badly.
1988: Lloyd Bentsen was 67 on Election Day. He didn't run in 1992, but did get to be Secretary of the Treasury in the Clinton Administration.
1984: Geraldine Ferraro never won another election after her VP run, partly due to negative ads about her family's legal troubles.
1980: Walter Mondale was an incumbent VP; he won the 1984 nomination.
1976: Bob Dole was a non-incumbent VP candidate for an incumbent President; he ran in 1980 but was an afterthought to the Ford-Reagan fight. He did get to be Senate Majority/Minority Leader from 1985 through 1996, when he finally got that nomination (he also ran and failed in 1988).
1972: Sargent Shriver ran in 1976, failed badly, and left politics.
So as I'd categorize it:
3 incumbent VPs (Pence, Quayle, Mondale), of whom 1 sought and won the next nomination, and another tried and failed for a later nomination.
2 over-60 VP candidates (Kemp, Bentsen) who never ran for President afterwards.
6 more never ran for President again (Kaine, Ryan, Palin, Kemp, Bentsen, Ferraro). Kemp and Bentsen would notably have been over 65 by the next election. Kaine and Ryan are the ones who most plausibly could have won a nomination.
1 more skipped the next election, but ran and failed later (Quayle).
4 ran in the next election (Edwards, Lieberman, Dole, Shriver); only 1 was doing well (Edwards, before the scandal sunk him). However, Dole of course did eventually get his day.
Separately, 3 turned their raised profile into sweet consolation prizes (Ryan, Bentsen, Doyle), and that should be included in the appeal of the VP pick. (To say nothing of cushy positions they earned outside of government.)
Being VP on a losing ticket might be more valuable to some candidates than others. The over-60 candidates (Kelly, Walz, Cooper) are over 60, so they have less chance of a second act than the younger candidates. But the consolation prizes are potentially there for anyone.