Walter Mondale, Jimmy Carter's vice president, dead at 93

Walter Mondale, a Democratic vice president who was beaten by Ronald Reagan in a landslide presidential election in 1984, died at his home in Minneapolis on Monday. He was 93.

A statement from the Mondale family sharing news of Walter Mondale's death did not provide a specific cause.

Mondale was Jimmy Carter's running mate in 1976, beating Republican incumbent Gerald Ford and Bob Dole. Hamstrung by a weakened U.S. economy and energy crisis, Carter and Mondale lost reelection in 1980 to Reagan and George H.W. Bush. A U.S. senator for Minnesota from 1965 to 1977, he was President Bill Clinton's ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996.

Four years after his single term as vice president, Mondale became the Democratic Party's nominee against Reagan, narrowly edging out Colorado Sen. Gary Hart. He picked New York congresswoman Geraldine Ferraro to be the first woman vice presidential candidate representing a major political party.

They were trounced, however, winning only Minnesota and Washington, D.C., in a Reagan landslide.

"Today I mourn the passing of my dear friend Walter Mondale, who I consider the best vice president in our country’s history," Carter said in a statement on Monday.

Some 22 years after last holding elected office, in 2002, Mondale emerged from retirement to run for the U.S. Senate seat in Minnesota vacated by Paul Wellstone, who was killed in a plane crash two weeks before Election Day. He lost narrowly to Norm Coleman in a humiliating defeat.