Tim Kaine Defeats Hung Cao for 3rd Senate Term in Virginia

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) at his election watch party in Richmond, Va., on Nov. 5, 2024 Terri Wu/The Epoch Times

RICHMOND, Va.—Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) won his reelection for a third term, defeating Republican challenger retired Navy captain Hung Cao.

Virginians also handed the Commonwealth’s 13 electoral votes to Vice President Kamala Harris, who won by 4.4 percent with 88 percent of the total votes counted.

The Associated Press called the Virginia Senate race for Kaine at about 11:30 p.m. He won by 5.4 points, with 77 percent of the votes counted.

At his watch party in Richmond, Kaine thanked his supporters and vowed to continue to “expand health care options, reproductive freedom, and fight for a cleaner environment.”

According to the Virginia Public Access Project (VPAP), a Richmond-based watchdog, Kaine raised about $17 million, more than twice Cao’s war chest.

Kaine ran his campaign on the economy, abortion, and health care affordability. Cao’s top issues are securing the southern border and achieving American energy independence.

Kaine gave his speech to the watch party attendees at about 11 p.m.—before his race was called—as he had the victory in the bag, given his 5 percent lead. Votes in precincts of the deeply blue Fairfax County in northern Virginia were still to be counted.

At a rally in Chantilly, northern Virginia, on Oct. 16, he told the crowd, “Virginia polls close first in the nation at seven o'clock Eastern time. We could get a call if we do our work for a clear win for Kamala and send a message to the rest of the country of a blue tsunami with Kamala Harris and Tim Walz.”

Tonight’s result was different. At one point, former President Donald Trump held a lead over Harris. Although the Associated Press hasn’t called the race in Virginia for Harris when Kaine ended his watch party, both Kaine and Sen. Mark Warner (D-Va.), who isn’t facing reelection this year, said the victory would be Harris’s.

According to VPAP, 2.3 million Virginians voted early, half of the overall 2020 turnout and a half-a-million decrease from 2020’s early vote counts. TargetSmart estimated 65 percent of the votes for Democrats and 22 percent for Republicans; the Commonwealth doesn’t register voters with party affiliations.

The 2024 voter turnout percentage of the 6.4 million Virginia registered voters is not yet available by the Department of Election. Virginia’s voter turnout was 75 percent in the 2020 presidential election.

Once again, the 2024 general election results confirmed Virginia as a blue territory. The Commonwealth has not voted red in presidential elections since 2008. With the Republican Governor Glenn Youngkin’s victory in 2021 and a few polls showing Trump within five points of Harris, some Republicans had hoped that Virginia would be “in play” this time.

The Trump campaign also saw some hope in Virginia. The Saturday before Election Day, Trump rallied in Salem, southwest Virginia, about 200 miles from Richmond, to turn out more Republican voters from the deeply red rural areas.

Republicans wanted to repeat Youngkin’s success by turning out more in the rural areas in southwest Virginia, getting a slight edge in the Virginia Beach area—the Commonwealth’s swing zone—while reducing loss margins in northern Virginia. Trump executed the playbook to some degree, but not enough.

Before the election, the Republicans in Virginia made a series of efforts to ensure election integrity.

In September 2022, Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares established an election integrity unit. According to his office, the unit would provide legal advice to the Department of Elections, prosecute violations of the state election law, and “work with law enforcement to ensure legality and purity in elections.”

On Aug. 7, Youngkin issued an executive order to clean up the voter roll by removing deceased voters, noncitizens, and those who had moved out of Virginia. Virginia Coalition for Immigrant Rights and other local groups sued the governor, alleging that he violated the National Voter Registration Act, which prohibits states from running “systematic” removal programs in voter registration rolls within 90 days of a federal election.

A federal and appellate judge ordered the Youngkin administration to reinstate the 1,600 voters they removed from the registered voter database. Eventually, on Oct. 30, the U.S. Supreme Court voted 6–3 to allow Virginia to continue removing noncitizens from registration rolls.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ), which represented the federal government in the proceeding, criticized the ruling.

“The Department brought this suit to ensure that every eligible American citizen can vote in our elections,” a DOJ spokesperson told The Epoch Times previously. “We disagree with the Supreme Court’s order.”