Walter Mondale, the former vice president under Jimmy Carter, passed away yesterday at the age of 93.

Mondale’s family said in a statement that he died in Minneapolis. No cause of death was given.

He served as Minnesota attorney general from 1960 to 1964 and as its U.S. senator from 1964 to 1976. Later, he served as running mate and eventual vice president to former President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981.

“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. “During our administration, Fritz used his political skill and personal integrity to transform the vice presidency into a dynamic, policy-driving force that had never been seen before and still exists today.”

“He was an invaluable partner and an able servant of the people of Minnesota, the United States, and the world. Fritz Mondale provided us all with a model for public service and private behavior. Rosalynn and I join all Americans in giving thanks for his exemplary life, and we extend our deepest condolences to his family,” the statement added.

After leaving the White House following Carter’s loss to Ronald Reagan in 1980, Mondale staged his own bid for the presidency. He earned the Democratic Party’s 1984 presidential nomination and became the first major-party presidential nominee to select a woman as his running mate and his selection of Rep. Geraldine Ferraro of New York.

While running for the presidency, Mondale surprised political onlookers with a pledge to raise taxes to reduce the federal budget deficit. Reagan won re-election in what is considered one of the most lopsided presidential races in US history.

On Election Day, Mondale carried only his home state and the District of Columbia. The electoral vote was 525-13 for Reagan — the biggest landslide in the Electoral College since Franklin Roosevelt defeated Alf Landon in 1936. (Sen. George McGovern got 17 electoral votes in his 1972 defeat, winning Massachusetts and Washington, D.C.)

Mondale and his wife, Joan Adams Mondale, were married in 1955. During his vice presidency, she pushed for more government support of the arts and gained the nickname “Joan of Art.” She had minored in art in college and worked at museums in Boston and Minneapolis.

The couple had two sons, Ted and William, and a daughter, Eleanor. Eleanor Mondale became a broadcast journalist and TV host, with credits including “CBS This Morning” and programs with E! Entertainment Television. Ted Mondale served six years in the Minnesota Senate and made an unsuccessful bid for the Democratic nomination for governor in 1998. William Mondale served for a time as an assistant attorney general.

Joan Mondale died in 2014 at age 83 after an extended illness.