This story was reported and written by VPM News.
Virginians chose Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine for a third term, sending the avuncular Richmonder back to D.C.
Kaine beat out Republican Hung Cao, a Navy veteran whose campaign was punctuated by striking statements.
The Associated Press called the race for Kaine at 11:22 p.m. Tuesday; all results are unofficial until certified by the state.
Before midnight, Cao issued a statement via email.
"With 70% of the votes in already, there's still 30% out," Cao wrote. "But the chances are insurmountable right now, it's mathematically almost impossible, but I will not call Senator Kaine until 100% of votes are in, but I want to tell you as my friends, that it's pretty much lost right now. I want to tell you this, though, we moved the heck out of that needle. Virginia is not blue, if anything it's purple."
Kaine was favored to win the race, as an incumbent with name recognition and a cash advantage. The returning senator has moved into a more progressive posture in the Democratic caucus. Despite being favored from the beginning, he campaigned aggressively by runn on his Senate record in statewide appearances and multiplatform ads in multiple languages.
Kaine’s victory means Virginia will retain the same representation it’s had in the U.S. Senate since 2013. Sen. Mark Warner, also a Democrat, was elected in 2008 and is next up for re-election in 2028. Both serve on the budget committee, and Kaine is chair of the Senate Armed Services Subcommittee on Seapower.
In the Senate, Kaine led the effort to repeal the authorization for wars in Iraq. More recently, he has sought to address the health care workforce crisis, backed access to reproductive care and fertility treatment and pushed for a new child care bill.
Abortion was one of the top issues this election motivating women, like Spotsylvania County's Yolanda April Harris, at the polls.
Harris said she voted for Democrats down the ticket.
“I came out to vote for our rights,” she said. “That we have the freedom to vote, of course, and then also for our democratic rights and women's rights.”
Cao, a recently-retired U.S. Navy Special Operations Officer, focused on border security and concerns about transgender people in the military on the campaign trail. He aggrandized masculinity in his rare media appearances, calling Kaine a “beta male” and a “soy boy.”
Jimmy Bannister in Ladysmith voted for Cao, but said he primarily came out to support Trump and he wanted to “drain the swamp.”
When asked about the issues that motivated him, Bannister listed “primarily, financial security, but border security, all of it, everything that we had that was going good.”
Former President Donald Trump endorsed Cao and appeared with him at a Northern Virginia Vietnamese restaurant. (Cao also appeared at Trump’s final Virginia stop near Roanoke on Nov. 2.)
Cao, who lost a race for the 10th Congressional District in 2022, handily won the Republican Senate primary in June with 61.8% of the vote.
Kaine campaigned aggressively all over the state and raised nearly $17 million — more than double Cao’s fundraising total, according to the Virginia Public Access Project. He was first elected to the Richmond City Council in 1994 and chosen as mayor in 1998 (under the city’s previous city-manager government).
In 2002, he moved across East Broad Street to the State Capitol as Mark Warner’s lieutenant governor, and then was elected governor in 2006. In 2012, he beat out fellow former governor (and U.S. Sen.) George Allen to become Virginia’s junior senator.
Kaine has only lost one race during his 30 years in politics — as Hillary Clinton’s running mate in 2016, when Trump won the presidency.
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