When it comes to modern presidential campaigns, when speculation arises of who the VP nominee will be, pundits and analysts usually point to candidates in swing states in order to secure their vote (in theory). My question is, did this strategy/thought process occur in the 19th and early 20th century? I know that most people point to the fact that Kennedy picked Johnson as his running mate back in the 1960 campaign to secure Texas. Was that the first time that happened?
After issues in the 1796 and 1800 Presidential elections, the Twelfth Amendment was passed and set forth the method of electing the President and Vice President that we have today. Before 1804, the President was the candidate who received the most Electoral votes while the Vice President was the candidate who finished second in the Electoral College results, no matter what party they belonged to or what their relationship was with the President. It didn't take long for that method to become a problem. So, after the Twelfth Amendment was passed, the nomination of a Vice Presidential candidate became an important part of the election process and political parties recognized that nominating a Vice President required some strategic thinking. The 1804 election was the first contested under the Twelfth Amendment and, really, ticket balance has been an important consideration of nearly every Presidential election since that time and had been for a long time when JFK chose LBJ as his running mate in 1960.
There are many different aspects to balancing a Presidential ticket, though. Of course, finding a balance that might put a swing state into play or give a ticket an added bounce in the Electoral College is important, especially in recent decades. However, there are different variables in consideration when balancing a ticket. The most dominant one over the past 200 years has been a regional balance between the principal candidates. In the 19th Century, this was especially important because of the sectional crises that led to eventual Civil War. Other usual considerations include experience (think Obama/Biden or G.W. Bush/Cheney), age (G.H. Bush/Quayle or McCain/Palin), nominating a President or Vice President who come from different wings of their party and balance each other politically (Ford/Dole in 1976 or Dukakis/Bentsen in 1988), and, more recently, race/sex/religious background (Mondale/Ferraro; McCain/Palin; Obama/Biden).
What's more rare is when there isn't a significant balance on the ticket between a Presidential candidate and Vice Presidential candidate -- such as in 1992 when the Democrats nominated Bill Clinton and Al Gore -- young, progressive candidates from the South who had a similar level of experience. The only major difference between the two was that Clinton's experience was largely as an executive at the state level while Gore's experience was as a Member of Congress and U.S. Senator.