Hillary Clinton Selects Tim Kaine, a Popular Senator From a Swing State, as Running Mate

Think of Kaine as you think of Pence for Trump.

Hillary Clinton named Senator Tim Kaine of Virginia to be her running mate Friday, selecting a battleground state politician with working-class roots and a fluency in Spanish, traits that she believes can bolster her chances to defeat Donald J. Trump in November.

Mrs. 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 Mr. Trump.

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

Mrs. 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; Senator 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.

In the end, Mrs. 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.

Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Kaine have similar positions on the issues and they are said to share an easy rapport and a love of granular policy-making. “I do have a fondness for wonks,” Mrs. Clinton said in the PBS interview.

At a campaign stop with Mrs. Clinton in Annandale, Va., last week, Mr. 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 Mrs. 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 Mr. Kaine.

Mrs. Clinton is expected to formally introduce Mr. 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.

Mr. Kaine worked on fair housing and civil right issues as a lawyer. He was elected to the City Council in Richmond, Va., 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.

More From The New York Times: