Walter Mondale, a leading liberal Democratic voice of the late 20th century who was U.S. vice president under Jimmy Carter and lost in a historic landslide to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election, died on Monday at age 93, according to media reports.

Mondale, the first major U.S. party presidential nominee to pick a woman running mate, died in Minneapolis, according to a family representative quoted by Axios.

Widely known as "Fritz," Mondale believed in an activist government and worked for civil rights, school integration, consumer protection and farm and labor interests as a U.S. senator and vice president during Carter's troubled one-term presidency from 1977 to 1981. He also served as U.S. ambassador to Japan from 1993 to 1996 under Bill Clinton. 

Mondale served in the Senate from 1964 until he was elected as vice president in Carter's 1976 victory over incumbent Republican Gerald Ford, who had become president after Nixon resigned in 1974 due to the Watergate corruption scandal.

Mondale became a more engaged vice president than many who preceded him. He played a key role in buttressing the sometimes frayed relationship between Carter's White House and the Democratic-controlled Congress.

(Cover: Former U.S. Vice President Walter Mondale speaks at an event held in his honor at the George Washington University, in Washington, October 20, 2015. /Reuters)