page_title: Tim Kaine
section_title: 2016 vice presidential campaign
hierarchical_section_title: Tim Kaine / 2016 vice presidential campaign
context_page_description: Timothy Michael Kaine is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Virginia since 2013. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as the 38th lieutenant governor of Virginia from 2002 to 2006 and 70th governor of Virginia from 2006 to 2010. Kaine was the Democratic nominee for Vice President of the United States in the 2016 election as the running mate of Hillary Clinton.
  Born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, Kaine grew up in Overland Park, Kansas, graduated from the University of Missouri in Columbia, Missouri and earned a Juris Doctor degree from Harvard Law School before entering private practice and becoming a lecturer at the University of Richmond School of Law. He was first elected to public office in 1994, when he won a seat on the Richmond City Council. He was then elected Mayor of Richmond in 1998 and was in that position until being elected Lieutenant Governor of Virginia in 2001. Kaine was elected Governor of Virginia in 2005 and was in that office from 2006 to 2010. He was chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2009 to 2011.
context_section_description: Kaine endorsed Hillary Clinton's presidential bid in 2016 and campaigned actively for Clinton in seven states during the primaries. He had been the subject of considerable speculation as a possible running mate for Clinton, with several news reports indicating that he was at or near the top of Clinton's list of people under consideration alongside figures such as Elizabeth Warren and Julian Castro.
  The New York Times reported that Clinton's husband, former president Bill Clinton, privately backed Kaine as his wife's vice-presidential selection, noting his domestic and national security résumé. On July 22, 2016, she announced Kaine would be her running mate in the election. Clinton introduced Kaine as her choice in a joint appearance at a rally at Florida International University in Miami the following day. The 2016 Democratic National Convention nominated him their vice presidential candidate on July 27, 2016.
  Kaine was the first Virginian since Woodrow Wilson to be on a major party's ticket, and was the first Virginian to run for vice president on a major party's ticket since John Tyler in 1840; he was also the first senator or former senator from Virginia to be on a major party's ticket since Tyler.
  In accordance with longstanding political custom in the U.S., upon being nominated for vice president Kaine publicly released his full tax returns for the last ten years. Kaine also publicly released medical records; his physician, Brian P. Monahan, the Attending Physician of the United States Congress, wrote in a letter that Kaine was "in overall excellent health." In September he published a campaign book co-authored with Clinton, Stronger Together.
  In Kaine's preparations for the vice presidential debate in October 2016, lawyer Robert Barnett played the role of Republican vice presidential candidate Mike Pence. (During Pence's own debate preparations, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker played the role of Kaine.) Pence was criticized after the debate for not defending Donald Trump's comments, while Kaine was criticized for being too aggressive and interrupting. According to ABC News, Kaine interrupted seventy times throughout the debate, while Pence interrupted forty times.
  Despite winning a plurality of the national popular vote, the Clinton-Kaine ticket lost the Electoral College, and thus the election, to the Trump-Pence ticket on November 8, 2016. This is the only election that Kaine has ever lost. Clinton-Kaine did win Virginia, the only Southern state to vote for the Democratic ticket, a victory attributed in part to Kaine.
caption: Clinton/Kaine logo