Retired Navy Capt. Hung Cao has won the Senate GOP primary in Virginia, beating out four other Republican rivals, and will take on incumbent Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA) in November.
Cao won his GOP primary with 65.9% of the vote after the Associated Press called the race at 7:23 p.m. with 19% of the vote counted. Cao defeated veteran Eddie Garcia, who received 10.1% of the vote, and Scott Parkinson, a former congressional staffer for Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-FL) who received 9.5% of the vote. He also defeated veteran Chuck Smith and Jonathan Emord, an author and lawyer.
Cao, who had been the front-runner in fundraising, also received the coveted endorsement of former President Donald Trump in late May in a post on Truth Social.
“A Combat Veteran and Highly Decorated Special Operations Officer, Hung Cao will be a tireless fighter to stop Inflation, grow our Economy, secure our Border, strongly support our Incredible Military/Vets and defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” Trump wrote.
Cao, who lost a congressional race to Rep. Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) by 6 percentage points two years ago, raised $2 million to challenge Kaine, which includes $811,511 in the last quarter.
Cao came to the United States as a refugee in 1975 from Vietnam and was later commissioned into the Navy as a special operations officer, retiring as a captain. In a campaign video, he compares Vietnam’s communist regime during the Cold War to today’s Biden administration.
“We are losing our country,” Cao says in the ad, blaming Biden for criminal cases moving forward against Trump. “You know it. But you also know that you can’t say it. We’re forced to say that wrong is right. We’re forced to lie.”
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Cao will face Kaine in November, who is seeking a third term. He was running unopposed. Kaine previously served as Richmond’s mayor, Virginia’s governor, and as chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In 2016, Hillary Clinton selected him as her running mate during her unsuccessful bid for the White House.
The most recent Republican to hold a Senate seat in Virginia was John Warner, who won a seat in 2002. Kaine’s seat is listed as solidly Democratic by the Cook Political Report, Inside Elections, and Sabato’s Crystal Ball at the University of Virginia. Kaine won his last race in 2018 by 16 percentage points.
