Hillary Clinton Selects Virginia Sen. Tim Kaine as her VP Running Mate

On July 22, 2016, Hillary Clinton announced that she had selected Tim Kaine as her vice presidential running mate in the 2016 presidential election.

Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine, 58, is an attorney serving as the junior United States Senator from Virginia. A member of the Democratic Party, Kaine was elected to the Senate in 2012.

Clinton named Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia to be her running mate Friday, according to a senior campaign official, selecting a battleground state politician with working-class roots and a fluency in Spanish, traits that she believes can bolster her chances to defeat Donald J. Trump in November, said the New York Times.

Mrs. Clinton’s choice came after her advisers spent months poring over potential vice-presidential candidates who could lift the Democratic ticket in an unpredictable race against Mr. Trump, said the NY Times.

The Washington Post, owned by Jeff Bezos of Amazon and openly at war with Trump, today called the Republican nominee "a unique threat to American democracy, and unfit to be president. They said of Kaine: a former Virginia governor, Richmond mayor and Democratic National Committee chairman, was chosen after a search that included riskier and more unconventional candidates who offered greater appeal to the party’s liberal base.

He was a longtime favorite to become Clinton’s running mate, however, in part because of the political and personal attributes she considers well-suited to the governing partnership she seeks — and in part because of the calculation that the experience of a Clinton-Kaine ticket would outgun Trump’s outsider bombast.

Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine earned a law degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law.

Kaine was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond, Virginia City Council. He was then elected Mayor of Richmond in 1998, serving in that position until being elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2002.

Kaine declared his candidacy for governor of Virginia in 2005 in a bid to replace Mark Warner (who was constitutionally precluded from serving another term). Kaine won in an uncontested Democratic primary, and faced Republican Attorney General Jerry Kilgore in the general election; Kaine won with 51% of the vote, to Kilgore's 46%. Kaine served as governor from 2006 to 2010.

Upon becoming governor, Kaine gave the Democratic response to the 2006 State of the Union Address. He was considered a top contender for running mate in Senator Barack Obama's successful 2008 presidential campaign, but instead became the 51st Chairman of the Democratic National Committee, serving from 2009 to 2011.

In 2012, after incumbent Senator Jim Webb announced he would retire, Kaine declared his candidacy for the U.S. Senate. Kaine prevailed in the Democratic primary and faced former Senator and Virginia Governor George Allen in the general election. In the November 2012 election, Kaine won with 53% of the vote to Allen's 47%. Kaine was sworn into office on January 3, 2013.