Cao, a retired Navy combat veteran backed by former President Donald Trump, won the Republican nomination in Virginia on Tuesday to take on Kaine in November.
“I spent twenty-five years in the Navy, while Tim Kaine spent thirty years in elected office. The taxpayers signed the front of our paychecks for the same amount of time,” Cao wrote in his victory post. “The difference is this: Tim Kaine got rich, and I got scars. Tim Kaine has already placed $2 million in television advertising for the fall, where he will pollute the airwaves with lies about me, but also about him.”
In Kaine’s Tuesday night post about Cao’s win, he said the Republican nominee “would be an automatic vote for a national abortion ban.”
“No matter what Tim Kaine and his super PACs say, I will not vote for any federal ban on abortion,” Cao responded.
The Vietnamese immigrant took on Kaine over the immigration crisis.
“Thank you Virginia! For our win to coincide with the date of Joe Biden’s amnesty for illegal immigrants highlights the stakes of this November’s election,” Cao said on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. “For women like Laken Riley and Rachel Morin, the Biden-Kaine open border policy was literally a matter of life and death.”
He added, “No matter what Tim Kaine and his super PACs say, Kaine will not secure our border or deport the illegal immigrants that should have never been in this country.”
Kaine released his first ad in the election on Wednesday against his new opponent by taking aim at Cao for calling the Virginia-based publication the Staunton News Leader “podunk.”
The newspaper covers local news in Virginia’s Staunton, Waynesboro, and Augusta counties. In May, Cao had slammed the paper for doing a “hit job” by “the Left” in a radio interview responding to questions about his use of fundraising money at his Unleash America super PAC.
Kaine also called Cao “an elitist” for not driving “6 1/2 hours” to Abington, Virginia.
“Elitists who won’t show up for you will never stand for you,” Kaine said in his ad.
“Say this for @timkaine: When he drives in the shiv, he always does so with a smile on his face,” columnist Jeff Schapiro wrote about Kaine’s first ad.
In a radio interview on Wednesday morning, Cao slammed Kaine by saying America is tired of these “beta-male leaf eaters.”
The Republican nominee plans to utilize his Trump endorsement and work with Trump’s 2024 ground team “to win Virginia back.” Two recent polls from Fox News and Roanoke College showed that Trump is tied in a head-to-head matchup with President Joe Biden in the commonwealth.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Steve Daines (R-MT) called Virginia “a real pickup opportunity” this election year.
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Kaine has been a long-time Democratic politician on a local and national level, having been a U.S. senator for Virginia since 2013. He also served as governor from 2006 to 2010 and was the Democratic National Committee chairman from 2009 to 2011, in addition to the running mate to former 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Cao came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975 and is a Naval Academy graduate and former special operations officer. He previously ran for Congress in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District in 2022.
