How come the President's approval ratings don't necessarily reflect on the VP?

[phk]

when the VP is running for President?

For instance, Ike's and Clinton's approvals were in the low 60s on election day 1960/2000, yet their VPs still managed to lose (by extremely narrow margins). On the other hand, Reagan's approvals were in the low 50s on election day 1988, yet Bush Sr. managed to win in an electoral landslide. The only election where the President's approval rating translated well on to the VP were in 1968, when LBJ's approval rating was in the low 40s on election day, and Humphrey managed to lose (albeit much more narrowly than he should have due to Wallace taking a lot of votes from Nixon).

One reason is who the opponent in the election was.  Dukakis was a terrible candidate; Bush and Kennedy were favored by the media.

I am surprised that Bush was favored by the media. Watch some of the 1984 election night coverage and you can see that the media was against Reagan...but that did no harm to him lol

Bush had a much better relationship with the press corps, while Gore was cold to them.