In the 2024 White House race, a handful of governors and senators are in the running for the vice presidency, which has drawn attention to the succession rules in the candidates’ home states should they win.
Each state has its own rules for appointing successors when elected officials leave office. These rules have significant political significance in a year when former President Donald Trump has already nominated Ohio Senator JD Vance as his running mate and Vice President Kamala Harris is considering her own candidate for the second spot on the ballot.
Here are the rules in some states that have vice presidential candidates:
Pennsylvania
If Harris selects Governor Josh Shapiro, he will be able to remain in office while he campaigns for vice president. If ultimately elected, Shapiro would have to resign as governor before the inauguration on January 20, 2025.
Shapiro, 51, is in his second year as governor.
Under the constitution, Democratic Lieutenant Governor Austin Davis would serve the remainder of Shapiro’s four-year term, which ends in January 2027. Davis ran alongside Shapiro in the 2022 general election after Shapiro endorsed him in a separate primary for lieutenant governor.
Davis, 34, would be the youngest governor in the country and the first black governor of Pennsylvania, as well as the second-youngest governor ever. He is already the youngest lieutenant governor in the country and the first black lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania.
A novel governor is to be elected in the November 2026 elections.
Ohio
If Vance is elected, it would be up to Republican Governor Mike DeWine to appoint his successor.
His nominee would serve from Inauguration Day through December 15, 2026, under state law. A special election for the final two years of Vance’s six-year term would be held in November 2026.
DeWine has said he would pick someone who works tough for Ohio and is also capable of running – and winning – in 2026.
The race for the next full six-year term would take place in 2028.
A vacancy in the Senate would offer DeWine the chance to eliminate a bottleneck at the top of the political pecking order of Ohio’s emerging Republicans.
Lieutenant Governor Jon Husted and Attorney General Dave Yost are already gearing up for the 2026 gubernatorial primary, and three other state Republican incumbents are facing term limits in 2026 and considering their futures. Additionally, Cleveland businessman Bernie Moreno is running for Ohio’s other Senate seat this fall against incumbent Senator Sherrod Brown.
North Carolina
Governor Roy Cooper must leave his current post in January because the state constitution limits him to two consecutive four-year terms. He is one of many governors on Harris’ shortlist.
Another constitutional provision poses the risk that Cooper’s campaign trips to other states as Harris’s running mate could complicate the situation in his home country.
The Constitution states: “During the absence of the Governor from the State … the Lieutenant Governor shall act as acting Governor.”
The current lieutenant governor, who is elected separately from the governor, is Republican Mark Robinson. Robinson is running for governor against Democratic Attorney General Josh Stein, and the provision could facilitate Robinson push preferred policies in the final weeks of his campaign.
But could Robinson permanently replace significant measures taken by Cooper? That is highly unlikely, said one political expert, given the governor’s travel schedule and state-of-the-art transportation and communication systems.
The idea is “almost like a fun parlor game,” said Chris Cooper, a political scientist at Western Carolina University who is not affiliated with the governor. “It’s a peculiar part of our state constitution, but from a political perspective, it’s just not going to have any meaning.”
If Robinson were to issue an order that Roy Cooper did not like, the governor could simply reverse it upon his return, Chris Cooper said.
And while the Republican-controlled General Assembly could meet in Cooper’s absence and pass a bill that Robinson could quickly sign, Republicans already have veto-proof majorities that allow them to pass legislation largely as they please.
Kentucky
Democratic Governor Andy Beshear increased his national profile by winning a second term in the predominantly Republican state of Kentucky last year.
Democratic Lieutenant Governor Jacqueline Coleman would take Beshear’s place in Kentucky if the governor resigns and becomes vice president. She would serve the remainder of his term, which ends in tardy 2027, and could run for a full term in this year’s election. Beshear and Coleman ran together in their successful 2019 and 2023 campaigns.
There is debate in Kentucky’s political circles about whether Coleman can appoint a successor as lieutenant governor. It is an “open question” because Kentucky’s constitution “does not specifically address this question,” says Joshua A. Douglas, a law professor at the University of Kentucky.
This is not the first time Kentucky’s succession rules have come under scrutiny. Republican lawmakers this spring passed a bill to fill a vacant U.S. Senate seat through a special election, overriding Beshear’s veto. The law strips the governor of his role in filling a vacancy. It came at a time when the health of Kentucky’s oldest senator, Republican leader Mitch McConnell, has come under increasing scrutiny, although supporters of the bill said it had nothing to do with it.
Arizona
Senator Mark Kelly is considered a possible Democratic candidate for vice president and is familiar with the process of filling vacancies in Arizona, having won a special election for John McCain’s senior seat in 2020.
If the former astronaut is elected vice president, Arizona’s Democratic governor, Kate Hobbs, would have to appoint a successor from the same party as Kelly. That person would serve until a special election in 2026 to fill the final two years of Kelly’s term.
In December 2018, Arizona’s Republican governor Doug Ducey appointed then-Republican Representative Martha McSally to the McCain seat, which had been occupied by Republican Senator Jon Kyl for several months after McCain’s death.
An example of how a Senate seat can ultimately change party leadership is Kelly’s loss to McSally in a 2020 special election. It was considered one of the toughest Senate elections in the country that year. Kelly was re-elected in November 2022.
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Associated Press writers Bruce Schreiner, Gary D. Robertson, Marc Levy, Julie Carr Smyth and Jonathan J. Cooper contributed to this report.
