Kaine Vs. Cao: VA Senate Race Focuses On Abortion, Border, Economy

VIRGINIA — With the Democrats battling to retain control of the U.S. Senate, every race counts. Incumbent Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine, 66, is running for a third term against Republican Hung Cao, 53, a retired Navy captain from Purcellville.

Top issues in the campaign are abortion access, immigration, border security, health care and the size of the federal workforce.

Here are the candidates' positions on a few issues:

Abortion Access

Kaine's campaign said women face threats to reproductive freedom around the country with "new draconian abortion restrictions and extremist legislatures plotting to rip away even more reproductive rights following the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade." Virginia is the last state in the South without a strict abortion ban.

After the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Kaine introduced the Reproductive Freedom for All Act, that would enact the core holdings of Supreme Court cases which established and affirmed the rights to abortion and contraception. He was also an original cosponsor of legislation to restore contraception coverage in the Affordable Care Act.

Cao's website said: "I am pro-life. Make no mistake: the right to life is one of the biggest differences between me and Tim Kaine. I am the father of five children, and I spent a lifetime fighting for all Americans."

“I'm a Christian and I believe that life begins at conception,” Cao told WJLA in July. "However, the Dobbs decision decided that this is a state-level issue. So as a U.S. senator, I would never vote for anything that would restrict abortion because I don't want to take rights away from the states.”

Border Security

Cao has made this his top campaign issue but told NBC Washington that deporting all undocumented immigrants could take time.

“If we secure the border, if we stop giving them money, if we immediately deport incarcerated persons and enforce companies to use E-Verify, the system will work itself out,” he said.

Kaine told NBC he’s voted for border security funding bills three times, but Republicans have blocked them. Mass deportation of immigrants would batter the U.S. economy, he said.

“I do think a workforce-based immigration reform is good for everybody,” Kaine said. “So, let’s take that border security piece and then in the workforce area we can look at things like dreamers and TPS visas to really make sure that we’re having the workforce that America needs.”

Cao pledged to buld the border wall to stop what his campaign website called a flood of drugs like fentanyl, plus the entry millions of illegal immigrants into our country, that Kaine and President Biden have allowed.

"The whole world knows that Joe Biden has placed a 'Welcome' sign on the Mexican border. People who hate us have accepted that invitation. As senator, I will stop it."

Temporary Protected Status (TPS) recipients are living in the U.S. after being displaced by dangerous conditions in their home countries, with more than 22,000 TPS holders living in Virginia, Kaine's office said. He has cosponsored legislation to give TPS recipients the opportunity to become permanent residents of the United States and called for TPS designations for countries with major humanitarian crises, including Cameroon, Venezuela, and Ukraine.

Healthcare

While GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump has talked about curtailing the Affordable Care Act, which offers health insurance coverage for the uninsured, Kaine wants to expand it.

"I was the deciding vote to save the Affordable Care Act a few years back. Hundreds of thousands of Virginians for the first time in their life – and all Virginians protected from discrimination against pre-existing conditions," Kaine told FOX 5.

Kaine introduced the Medicare-X Choice Act in Congress, which would allow patients to choose between private and public insurance.

Cao's website says he will advocate for lowering prescription drug prices.

"Most Americans are unaware several types of medication including antibiotics, cancer therapy, and pain medication are now unavailable at their local pharmacy," said Cao. "It is imperative that the medical industry be allowed to innovate and compete in order to drive down costs."

The Economy

The United States must be energy independent and not rely on oil from the Middle East or Venezuela, Cao said. His website says the country should invest in producing American-made energy, including oil, natural gas, nuclear power and renewables like wind and solar.

Manufacturing must return to the U.S., Cao said, and called China an existential threat to the country.

"I will protect American jobs and products against unfair trade practices by other countries, especially China, even if those other countries threaten to retaliate," Cao said. "Patriotism demands we oppose the outsourcing and offshoring of American jobs to other countries. We can rebuild American manufacturing. All it requires is leadership."

Kaine supports investing in renewable energy, including offshore wind and solar, which would not only make Virginia a leader in clean energy development and create new jobs that can’t be outsourced, but would also reduce pollution and bolster our national security.

His websie said he worked to pass the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022, that will reduce carbon emissions by roughly 40 percent by 2030 by incentivizing investment in and production of renewable energy. This bill is expected to create nearly 1 million jobs per year and reduce energy costs.

He introduced the BUILD Resilience Act, which would spur investments in resilient infrastructure to reduce the risk of climate effects like flooding and extreme storms to communities like Hampton Roads.

And he supported the construction of the state-of-the-art Virginia City Hybrid Energy Center in Wise County, one of the most advanced clean coal plants in the United State, Kaine said. In 2022, he helped pass a permanent extension of the Black Lung Disability Trust Fund excise tax at a higher rate to care for miners, miner retirees, and their families who rely on the fund to access benefits.

Military Readiness

During their only debate on Oct. 2, Cao criticized DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) efforts in the military, saying recruiting drag queens would harm military readiness.

"What we need is alpha males and alpha females who are going to rip out their own guts, eat them and ask for seconds," Cao said, according to NBC News. Those are young men and women that are going to win wars."

Kaine said the military must reach out to new constituencies and convince people about the benefits of military service. "DEI is a red herring," he told NBC.

About Tim Kaine

Kaine grew up working in his father's Kansas City ironworking shop, graduated from Harvard Law School, and was first elected to the Senate in 2012. In 2016, he was Hillary Clinton's running mate for vice president. He serves on the Armed Services, Budget, Foreign Relations, and Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committees.

After graduating from the University of Missouri, Kaine ran a technical school founded by Jesuit missionaries in Honduras. He trained teenagers to become carpenters and welders.

He was first elected to office in 1994, serving as a city councilmember and then mayor of
Richmond. Kaine became lieutenant governor of Virginia in 2002 and was inaugurated as
Virginia’s 70th governor in 2006. He is married to Anne Holton, who served as Virginia
Secretary of Education from 2014 until 2016 and as the interim president of George Mason
University from 2019 until 2020. They have three grown children and live in Richmond.

About Hung Cao

Cao is a retired U.S. Navy captain, who served for 25 years in the military. He made an unsuccessful run for office in 2022 in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District.

He came to the United States as a refugee from Vietnam in 1975. After a few years in West Africa, Hung moved to Virginia as a child and is a member of the inaugural graduating class of Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria.

He was commissioned as a Special Operations Officer (Explosive Ordnance Disposal and Deep Sea Diving) from the United States Naval Academy, and served with special operations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Somalia. Hung’s non-combat assignments included balancing the Navy’s $140 billion budget at the Pentagon, working with Homeland Security, and the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force.

Hung received his master's degree in physics from the Naval Postgraduate School, and fellowships at MIT and Harvard. He and his wife April are the parents of five children.