He is the eldest of three sons[1][2] born to Mary Kathleen (née Burns), a home economics teacher, and Albert Alexander Kaine Jr., a welder and the owner of a small iron-working shop.

[2] Kaine received his Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Missouri in 1979, completing his degree in three years and graduating Omicron Delta Kappa and summa cum laude.

[16] He was a board member of the Virginia chapter of Housing Opportunities Made Equal, which he represented in a landmark redlining discrimination lawsuit against Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. arising from the company's practices in Richmond.

[17] Kaine had a largely apolitical childhood, but he became interested in politics in part due to the influence of his wife's family and his experience attending Richmond city council meetings.

[21] During his mayoralty, Kaine drew criticism for spending $6,000 in public funds on buses to the Million Mom March, an anti-gun-violence rally in Washington, D.C.; after a backlash, he raised the money privately and reimbursed the city.

[44] The campaign turned sharply negative in its final weeks, with Kilgore running television attack ads that falsely claimed that Kaine believed that "Hitler doesn't qualify for the death penalty.

[dubious – discuss][67] In 2007, the Republican-controlled Virginia General Assembly passed legislation, with "overwhelming bipartisan support", to require girls to receive the HPV vaccine (which immunizes recipients against a virus that causes cervical cancer) before entering high school.

"[74] In April 2007, Kaine signed an executive order instructing state agencies to step up efforts to block gun sales to people involuntarily committed to inpatient and outpatient mental health treatment centers.

[78] The Washington Post wrote, "Unable to raise taxes and required by law to balance the budget, he was forced to make unpopular cuts that led to such things as shuttered highway rest stops and higher public university tuition.

[79] In July 2007, during the debate on the Silver Line of the Washington Metro through Tysons Corner, Kaine supported an elevated track solution rather than a tunnel, citing costs and potential delays that would put federal funding at risk.

[80] In 2006, Kaine pressed the general assembly to support a legislative package to ease severe traffic congestion by spending about $1 billion annually for highway construction, repairs to aging roads, mass transit, and other transportation projects.

[81][82][83] The Democratic-controlled Senate supported the plan, but the Republican-controlled House was unwilling to approve the taxes necessary to carry out the project, and the effort failed even after a special session of the legislature was called over the stalemate.

[125] As a member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs, Kaine pushed for a new congressional authorization of military force for the American operations against Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

[126] Kaine supported the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action with Iran, though he also helped Republican senator Bob Corker hold a vote on a resolution of disapproval of the deal.

[185] In 2015, Kaine joined a group of Senate Democrats in a letter to Securities and Exchange Commission Chairwoman Mary Jo White that said the ruling "reversed long-standing precedent and has moved our country in a different and disturbing direction when it comes to corporate influence in politics."

Representatives Rob Wittman and Scott Rigell—to hold a conference on sea-level rise and "local adaptation efforts to protect military installations in the Hampton Roads area.

[198] In 2013, Kaine supported oil and gas exploration off the coast of Virginia, saying, "I have long believed that the moratorium on offshore drilling, based on a cost-benefit calculation performed decades ago, should be reexamined.

[208] In 2015, Kaine expressed support for the Saudi-led coalition's airstrikes in Yemen against Houthi forces fighting the government of President Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi,[209] but in 2018, he was one of seven senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo saying that they found it "difficult to reconcile known facts with at least two" of the Trump administration's certifications that Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were attempting to protect Yemeni civilians and were in compliance with U.S. laws on arms sales, citing an inconsistency with a memo from Pompeo to Congress expressly stating that on some occasions the Saudi and Emirates governments had failed to adopt measures to reduce civilian casualties.

[213][214] In 2019, Kaine was one of 34 Senate Democrats to sign a letter to Trump urging him to reconsider cuts to U.S. foreign aid to the Northern Triangle countries of Central America in the Fiscal Year 2018 national security appropriations bill.

[222] According to Kaine, American foreign policy has suffered a lack of direction since the 1990s because the end of the Cold War rendered irrelevant America's previous grand strategy, which he identifies as the Truman Doctrine.

[224] Kaine's website states, "The main mission in Afghanistan—destroying Al Qaeda—is nearly complete and we should bring our troops home as quickly as we can, consistent with the need to make sure that Afghanistan poses no danger in the broader region.

Where I differ from this administration, and I took the same position with respect to President Obama, we are a nation that's not supposed to take military action, start war, without a plan that's presented to and approved by Congress.

"[239] On December 11, 2014, after a five-month campaign by Kaine, the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved by 10–8 (along party lines) a measure authorizing military force against ISIL but barring the use of ground troops.

[206] In November 2017, Kaine was a cosponsor of the Military Domestic Violence Reporting Enhancement Act, a bill that would form a charge of domestic violence under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) and stipulate that convictions be reported to federal databases with the authority to keep abusers from purchasing firearms within three days in an attempt to close a loophole in the UCMJ through which convicted abusers retained the ability to purchase firearms.

[250] In June 2019, Kaine was one of four senators to cosponsor the Help Empower Americans to Respond (HEAR) Act, legislation that would ban suppressors being imported, sold, made, sent elsewhere or possessed and grant a silencer buyback program as well as include certain exceptions for current and former law enforcement personnel and others.

"[264] In September 2019, amid discussions to prevent a government shutdown, Kaine was one of six Democratic senators to sign a letter to congressional leadership advocating legislation that would permanently fund health care and pension benefits for retired coal miners as "families in Virginia, West Virginia, Wyoming, Alabama, Colorado, North Dakota and New Mexico" would start to receive notifications of health care termination by the end of the following month.

[279] In October 2018, Kaine was one of 20 senators to sign a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo urging him to reverse the State Department's policy of denying visas to same-sex partners of LGBTQ diplomats who had unions that were not recognized by their home countries, writing that the Trump administration's refusal to allow LGBTQ diplomats to bring their partners to the U.S. was tantamount to upholding the "discriminatory policies of many countries around the world.

[288] He said the goal should be to "negotiate deals that protect workers' rights, environmental standards and intellectual property, while knocking down tariffs and other barriers that some countries erect to keep American products out.

In it, he chronicles hiking the 559 miles of the Appalachian Trail in Virginia, biking the 321-mile length of the Blue Ridge Parkway and kayaking the James River from the Allegheny Mountains to the Chesapeake Bay.

[314] According to The New York Times, Kaine "is widely described by people in his political orbit as a likable if less than charismatic figure...guided by moral convictions that flow from his deep Christian faith.