President-elect of the United States the 25th Amendment. The first instance was in 1973, when Gerald Ford was nominated by President Richard Nixon to succeed Spiro Agnew, who had resigned. The second came in 1974, when Ford, who had succeeded to the presidency following Nixon's resignation, nominated Nelson Rockefeller to succeed him. During both vacancies, the nominee was called Vice President-designate, instead of Vice President-elect, as neither had been elected to the office. As a result of these events, the nation has had two more Vice Presidents than it has had Vice President-elects. While he is currently the 48th U.S. Vice President, Mike Pence was
Spiro Agnew and to make it clear his running mate had his support. Agnew could also usefully play an "attack dog" role, as Nixon had in 1952. Initially, Agnew played the centrist, pointing to his civil rights record in Maryland. As the campaign developed, he quickly adopted a more belligerent approach, with strong law-and-order rhetoric, a style which alarmed the party's Northern liberals but played well in the South. John Mitchell, Nixon's campaign manager, was impressed, some other party leaders less so; Senator Thruston Morton described Agnew as an "asshole". Throughout September, Agnew was in the news, generally as a result of