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Mr Mondale was Jimmy Carter’s running mate for his winning 1976 presidential bid and defeat four years later.
Mr Carter said he considered Mr Mondale the “best vice-president in our country’s history”.
Mr Mondale lost heavily to Ronald Reagan in the 1984 presidential election, securing only his home state of Minnesota and Washington DC.
That gave him 13 electoral votes compared with President Reagan’s record-high tally of 525.
Mr Mondale is also remembered for choosing Geraldine Ferraro of New York as his running mate – the first woman on a major-party presidential ticket.
In a statement, Mr Carter said he was “an invaluable partner and an able servant of the people of Minnesota, the United States and the world”.
“Rosalynn and I join all Americans in giving thanks for his exemplary life, and we extend our deepest condolences to his family,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Joe Biden said of Mondale: “There have been few senators, before or since, who commanded such universal respect. … It was Walter Mondale who defined the vice presidency as a full partnership, and helped provide a model for my service.”
Vice President Kamala Harris said that she had spoken with Mondale “a few days ago” and that he was always “so generous with his wit and wisdom over the years.”
“Each time I open my desk drawer and see his signature there, alongside the signatures of 11 other Vice Presidents, I will be reminded of and grateful for Vice President Mondale’s life of service,” she said in a statement.
He ran as the Democratic presidential nominee against Ronald Reagan in 1984. He lost in one of the most lopsided electoral victories in modern American politics, winning only his home state, Minnesota, and the District of Columbia.
Mondale started his career as an activist in Minnesota’s Democratic–Farmer–Labor Party, then by working on Hubert Humphrey’s Senate campaign in 1948.
He graduated from the University of Minnesota law school in 1956 and was the state’s attorney general from 1960 until he was appointed to the Senate in 1964 to finish Humphrey’s term after he became Lyndon B. Johnson’s vice president.
Mondale was elected to the Senate in 1966 and again in 1972.
His wife of 58 years, Joan, died in 2014 at age 83 after a long illness. His daughter, Eleanor, died in 2011 after being diagnosed with brain cancer.
