HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) – In a year when important presidential elections dominate headlines and voters’ attention, another high-stakes race with national implications is unfolding here in the commonwealth.
A Senate seat is at stake in Virginia, where two-term incumbent Democrat Tim Kaine is trying to prevent Republican challenger Hung Kao from gaining a powerful seat in the Senate.
This time, the person who can draw the most support across party lines is likely to survive to the end.
Tim Kaine (Democrat)
Sen. Tim Kaine is running for re-election this November against Republican challenger Hung Kao.
Sen. Tim Kaine’s record speaks for itself. He has won six elections since 1994, rising from mayor of Richmond to his current position as Virginia’s junior senator.
Mr. Kaine is a ranking member of four Senate committees, including the powerful Armed Services Committee. When news broke that Yahya Sinwar, the former leader of the Hamas terrorist group that carried out the deadly invasion of Israel on October 7, 2023, was killed, Cain spoke to WHSV regarding the Gaza war. “Now is the time to protect peace,” he said. -escalation. “
“This is a critical moment, and I think it could be a defining moment for Israel to say, ‘Okay, now is the time to stop fighting in Gaza,'” Kaine said. “Let’s bring humanitarian aid to the suffering Palestinians. Let’s talk about a just future for Palestine, and let’s engage the whole region in discussions about how to bring more stability to the region.”
Kaine’s Republican opponent, Hung Kao, is a U.S. Navy veteran who served in the Special Forces for 25 years before retiring with the rank of colonel. Kane, on the other hand, has never served in the military. But while Kaine praises Cao’s accomplishments, he argues that his dedication to America’s allies makes him even more qualified to continue supporting military operations at the Capitol.
“I really appreciate the importance of allies,” Cain said. “And (Cao Cao) has a tendency to disparage them. One of NATO’s three headquarters is in Norfolk, Virginia, and has been there since the mid-1950s. And he basically gave NATO a blank slate. They go around saying they are worthless and that all NATO workers are lazy, and saying that when we are proud to call Virginia home to NATO shows some kind of tone-deafness about Virginia. ”
When it comes to farm aid, Virginia’s main economic driver, Kaine was candid about the possibility of passing a new farm bill before the election, saying that with lawmakers in recess until Nov. There is no gender,” he told WHSV. Kaine expressed optimism that an updated farm bill — which provides resources and assistance to farmers and sets conditions for SNAP benefits, among other things — could be passed by the end of the year.
“In September,[Sen. Debbie Stabenow, chair of the Senate Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee]said, ‘You know what? There’s a lot of movement on this right now. “So I think the defense bill, the farm bill, and the year-end budget are the three priorities that I’m going to hit on when I get back here in November.” ”
Asked about his support for former U.S. Rep. Denver Riggleman, a Republican who once represented Virginia’s 5th District, Kaine said he’s “seen some kind of shift” in the dislike of lawmakers across party lines. But he suspects that Riggleman’s support is more likely to come from moderate Republicans who want to break away from Trump-era politics than from Democrats.
“I think there are a lot of strong Republicans in Virginia who are eager to see their party in a post-Trump era,” Kaine said. “They don’t think Donald Trump, who wasn’t originally a Republican, is the right person to represent the party of Lincoln. I think Denver Riggleman is in that camp as well.”
Rejecting Cao’s claims that Mr. Kaine is a “weak man” and that it is time to send “militants” to Washington, the senator said voters’ choices in November will be a matter of “consequences and extremism.” He said it was a choice between.
“My opponents like to call me names,” Kane said. “He liked to talk about how important an issue witchcraft was to Virginians, he called out NATO’s name, he called out Stanton’s name, he said it was stupid to go to Abingdon. Those were extremes. It’s like celebrating the end of Roe V. Wade. If you want results, I’m your guy. If you want notoriety, you’ll probably vote for someone else.”
Hung Kao (R)
Caleb Peek speaks with Republican Hung Kao about why he is running for the U.S. Senate.
For Hung Kao, just living in America is an accomplishment. His family arrived in the United States in 1975 as refugees from Vietnam, and after a period in West Africa, they eventually settled in Virginia. A graduate of the prestigious Thomas Jefferson High School of Science and Technology, Cao Cao made the most of new opportunities, and his long service in the Navy, including 25 years in the Special Forces, included stints at the U.S. Naval Academy and Naval Academy. Recorded by bachelor’s and master’s degrees. graduate school.
Mr. Cao, himself an immigrant, said securing the southern border would be a primary goal.
“Tens of millions of illegal immigrants are coming across the border,” Cao told WHSV. “And last month, they announced that 13,000 convicted murderers and 16,000 convicted rapists encountered under the watchful eye of Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Kaine. I reported that there were people.”
In support of his belief that unchecked immigration poses a threat to national security, Cao cited several examples of Virginians suffering at the hands of illegal immigrants.
“In Virginia alone, a grandmother named Melody Waldecker was murdered by an illegal alien in Sterling, Virginia,” Cao said. “In Chesapeake, a young student named Lauren Nicole Leonard was murdered by an illegal alien. In Manassas, a 12-year-old girl was kidnapped by an illegal alien on her way to school. This has to stop. yeah.”
Cao did not directly answer whether he supported the mass deportation plan proposed by former president and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump, but he left little doubt about his feelings toward people who cross the border illegally. I didn’t leave anything behind.
“I believe we need to get people out of here who don’t belong here,” Cao said. “Our country and economy cannot sustain it.”
Asked if he supported a multitrillion-dollar farm bill to replace the law that expired in 2018, Cao said: We can produce so much here, it’s one of the most profitable things in Virginia, and we need to keep it that way. ”
But Mr. Cao quickly pivoted to reestablishing American energy independence, advocating growth in the country’s oil production and nuclear power sector. He cited his vision to widely disseminate the Navy’s water intake technology, which is installed on nuclear-powered ships, throughout the country.
“Do you realize how much electricity you can generate with nuclear power? All the water is needed to cool the reactor, and the steam is recovered from it in a four-stage still. And we do that every day. We produce so much drinking water that we have to pump hundreds of thousands of gallons of water because we can’t use it all.”
“My family were refugees to this country,” he added. “And I paid it all back, including interest. I wrote a blank check for the rest of my life to protect this country, and I have no plans to stop now.”
Finally, WHSV asked Mr. Cao to respond to a television ad by the Cain campaign asking for comments this spring calling the Stanton News-Leader a “podunk” publication.
When asked to clarify his remarks to voters in the Stanton area, Mr. Cao became even more emphatic.
“I used to call the paper ‘Podunk’ because it was a left-wing rag,” Cao said. “They hired a young girl from Wisconsin to write a terrible story about us, so I called it Podunk. And of course Tim Kaine tries to change things. ‘I… I was in a refugee camp, so don’t talk about Podunk.”
As a parting thought, Mr. Cao launched a counterattack against Kaine, asking voters to ask themselves, “What has Tim Kaine done for you?”
“Over 12 years in the U.S. Senate, he proposed 227 bills. Do you know how many people got through it? Three. That’s a 99% failure rate. No one can afford to have a 99% failure rate. Do you have it?”
Voting closes on November 5th at 7pm.
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