running mate

1. 1.

   a nominee for the lesser of two closely related political offices

   Broadercampaigner

Questions about running mate

What does running mate mean?

running mate means "a nominee for the lesser of two closely related political offices".

Is running mate a common word?

running mate is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.