Presidents and almost presidents
Every four years, the Democrats and Republicans in the United States each pick a team of two to appear on the November ballot. These two pairs have been, in living memory, the likeliest contenders for president and vice president.
Recently, seven of these candidates have been born within two years of each other. They are, from oldest to youngest: Donald Trump, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Dan Quayle, Mitt Romney, Hillary Clinton, and Al Gore.
The largest percent of the popular vote that a third party candidate has received in the last 100 years was Ross Perot with 19% in 1992,1 and the largest number of electoral college votes that a third party candidate has received in the last 100 years was George Wallace with 46 out of 538 in 1968.2
In 1952, president Truman was leaving office, and neither his vice president Barkley nor his previous challenger Dewey would run in that election. This represented a hard break for candidates after the Truman years. Of those, 28 have died and 20 (above) are still living as of this post.
Note: in 1972, Thomas Eagleton was the Democratic VP nominee for just two weeks. He dropped out after it became known that he had received treatment for depression. He was replaced by Sargent Shriver.