Video: 'Ebru Today-DC Connection-27th Vice President James S. Sherman'

(Wednesday, October 30, 1912, 9:12 p.m. EST; during the 1912 United States presidential election campaign) — U.S. Vice President James S. Sherman, currently seeking a second consecutive term of office on the Republican Party ticket with incumbent President William Howard Taft, died tonight of Bright’s disease — a historical classification of kidney diseases that are described in modern medicine as acute or chronic nephritis — in Utica, New York, just six days before Election Day.

Sherman’s death at age 57 left President Taft without a running mate,  although Nicholas Murray Butler, president of Columbia University, was designated to receive the electoral votes that Sherman would have received.

Video: 'Hidden History Sherman'

Taft and Butler would come in third place in the general election, carrying only eight electoral votes from Utah and Vermont.

Democratic Party candidate Woodrow Wilson and his running mate Thomas R. Marshall won the election while Progressive Party candidate former President Theodore Roosevelt and his running mate Hiram Johnson came in second place.

The vice presidency remained vacant until Marshall’s inauguration on March 4, 1913.