Hillary Clinton picks Sen. Kaine as vice presidential running mate

Hillary Clinton named Sen. 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 she believes can bolster her chances to defeat Donald Trump in November.

Clinton's choice, which she announced via text message to supporters, came after her advisers spent months poring over potential vice-presidential candidates who could lift the Democratic ticket in an unpredictable race against Trump.

In the end, Clinton decided Kaine, 58, a former governor of Virginia who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, had the qualifications and background and the personal chemistry with her to make the ticket a success.

Clinton had entertained more daring choices. She considered Thomas E. Perez, the secretary of labor, who would have been the first Hispanic on a major party ticket; Sen. Cory Booker, of New Jersey, who would have been the first African-American to seek the vice presidency; and Adm. James G. Stavridis, a retired four-star Navy admiral who served as the supreme allied commander at NATO, but had never held elected office.

[Tim Kaine: A liberal who rose in a conservative state]

In the end, Clinton, who told PBS she is "afflicted with the responsibility gene," avoided taking a chance with a less experienced vice-presidential candidate and felt no political need to push the historic nature of her candidacy by adding another woman or a minority to the ticket.

Clinton and Kaine have similar positions on the issues and they are said to share an easy rapport and a love of granular policymaking. "I do have a fondness for wonks," Clinton said in the PBS interview.

Asked whether Kaine was boring, Clinton said "I love that about him." She added, "He's never lost an election."

At a campaign stop with Clinton in Annandale, Virginia, last week, Kaine tried out for the role. "Do you want a 'You're fired' president or a 'You're hired' president?" he asked the crowd. "Do you want a trash-talking president or a bridge-building president?" He compared Clinton's record of public service to that of his wife, Anne Holton, Virginia's secretary of education. In recent days, President Bill Clinton and the White House had expressed support for Kaine.

Known as a pragmatic governor and senator, Kaine could help Clinton appeal to independent voters and moderate Republicans displeased with Trump. But he could also turn off some liberal Democrats with his support of free trade agreements, which Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont criticized to great effect in his nominating fight against Clinton.

The son of a welder who owned a small metalworking shop, Kaine, a Roman Catholic, grew up in the Kansas City area. He attended a Jesuit boarding school and took a break from law school at Harvard to spend time as a Catholic missionary in Honduras, an experience that his family has said shaped him and helped him become fluent in Spanish.

Clinton is expected to formally introduce Kaine as her running mate during a campaign swing through Florida, either at a rally at the state fairgrounds in Tampa on Friday or on Saturday at Florida International University in Miami, which has a large number of Hispanic students.

[How Tim Kaine and Hillary Clinton compare on the issues]

Kaine worked on fair housing and civil right issues as a lawyer. He was elected to the City Council in Richmond, Virginia, in 1994, then proceeded to climb the ranks of elected office in the state. He became city's mayor in 1998, the state's lieutenant governor in 2002 and its governor in 2006. He also served as chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

As governor, Kaine drew some support from rural parts of the state as well as strong backing in the state's Democratic-leaning suburban areas. He led the state through one of its darkest times, the shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people in 2007. In 2013, Kaine implored the U.S. Senate to find a "small measure of courage" to fight the gun lobby and impose tougher background checks on gun ownership.

Kaine was an early endorser of Sen. Barack Obama's presidential bid in the 2008 nominating fight against Clinton. Kaine was also considered on Obama's short list of vice-presidential candidates before Obama selected Sen. Joe Biden of Delaware. In 2012, Kaine defeated George Allen, a Republican, to take the Senate seat being vacated by Democrat Jim Webb.

Clinton's choice of Kaine underscores the changing demographics of Virginia, with its growing urban and minority populations.

Obama defeated John McCain in the state by more than 6 percentage points, the first time since Lyndon B. Johnson's victory in 1964 that the state had voted for a Democratic presidential nominee. An NBC News-Wall Street Journal poll from July 15 shows Clinton ahead of Trump for the state's 13 electoral votes by 9 percentage points.