In U.S. presidential elections, balancing the ticket was traditionally associated with the smoke-filled room cliché, but this changed in 1970 with reforms in the primary system resulting from the McGovern-Fraser Commission.
According to Douglas Kriner of Boston University, the McGovern-Fraser reforms brought an end to traditional ticket balancing practices.
Now, presidential candidates are less concerned with regional and ideological balance, says Kriner, and are more inclined to pick compatible running mates with extensive government experience.
[1] Nelson Polsby and Aaron Wildavsky, two notable political scientists of the late 20th century, described ticket balancing as a way to maximize the number of voters that the candidates can appeal to through a broad range of characteristics: If it is impossible to find one person who combines within his or her heritage, personality, and experience all the virtues allegedly cherished by American voters, the parties console themselves by attempting to confect out of two running mates a composite image of forward-looking-conservative, rural-urban, energetic-wise leadership that evokes hometown, ethnic, and party loyalties among a maximum number of voters.
After the Civil War, geographical balance between North and South became less critical but would remain a factor well into the 20th century, especially in the Democratic Party.
In 1992, Bill Clinton of Arkansas, seen as a more moderate Democrat, chose the more liberal Al Gore of neighboring Tennessee as his running mate.
[3][4] In 2000, Al Gore chose the centrist Joe Lieberman, a Jewish Democrat from Connecticut who had been one of the first people to criticize President Clinton for his scandal with Monica Lewinsky.
In modern times, voters in the South, Midwest, and Rocky Mountains region are less inclined to support Northeasterners and West Coasters without some sort of geographic balance and vice versa.
[9] In elections which are expected to be close, great concern is placed on a running mate's ability to appeal to voters in key states with critical numbers of votes in the Electoral College.
Key "blue states" like Michigan and Minnesota could be swayed to shift support toward a Republican candidate under the right conditions.
Walter Mondale's selection of Geraldine Ferraro in 1984 was widely seen as an appeal to female voters, and the same was true in 2008 when John McCain chose Sarah Palin, and in 2020 when Joe Biden picked Kamala Harris.
George W. Bush was considered a political novice and outsider when he chose Dick Cheney, a consummate Washington insider, as his running mate in 2000.
[19] In 2016, businessman Donald Trump who had no political experience chose a career politician, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
[23] Most ticket balancing is not limited to a single issue but is a factor of the overall strength that the running mate brings to a campaign.
When 72-year-old moderate Republican John McCain ran for president in 2008, he chose 44-year-old staunch conservative Sarah Palin as his running mate, in an effort to balance the ticket by age, gender and political philosophy.
[28] When Bola Tinubu, a southern Muslim, was running for the nomination of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as their candidate in the 2023 presidential election, he said that having both geographic and religious balance would be impossible.