leadership. Although Daschle was not seeking the Vice-Presidency, he received 10 (0.30%) delegate votes for Vice President of the United States at the 1980 Democratic National Convention. Several others also received protest votes, but incumbent Vice President Walter Mondale was nevertheless renominated easily. United States Senate (1987–2005) In 1986, Daschle was elected to the U.S. Senate in a close victory over incumbent Republican James Abdnor. In his first year, he was appointed to the Finance Committee. Party leadership In 1994, he was chosen by his colleagues to succeed the retiring Senator George Mitchell as Democratic minority leader. In the history of the Senate, only Lyndon B. Johnson had served fewer years before being elected to lead his party. In addition to the minority leader's post, Daschle served as a member of the U.S. Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry. South Dakotans reelected Daschle to the Senate by overwhelming margins in 1998. At various points in his career, he served on the Veterans Affairs, Indian Affairs, Finance, and Ethics Committees. When the 107th Congress commenced on January 3, 2001, the Senate was evenly divided—that is, there were 50 Democrats and 50 Republicans. Outgoing Vice President Al Gore acted in his constitutional capacity as ex officio President of the Senate, and used his tie-breaking vote to give the Democrats the majority in that chamber. For the next two weeks, Daschle served as Senate Majority Leader. Upon the commencement of the Bush administration on January 20, 2001, Dick Cheney became president of the senate, thereby returning Democrats to the minority in that body; Daschle reverted to the position of Senate Minority Leader. However, on June 6, 2001, Senator Jim Jeffords of Vermont announced that he was leaving the Senate Republican caucus to become an independent and to caucus with Democrats; this once again returned control of the body to the Democrats and Daschle again became majority leader. Democratic losses in the November 2002 elections returned the party to the minority in the senate in January 2003, and Daschle once more reverted to being minority leader. Daschle recounted his senate experiences from 2001 to 2003 in his first book, Like No Other Time: The 107th Congress and the Two Years That Changed America Forever, published in 2003. With Charles Robbins, he has also written the book The U.S. Senate, part of the Fundamentals of American Government series. Anthrax case in 2001 In October