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Profile: U.S. Democratic vice presidential nominee Tim Kaine

Xinhua, July 28, 2016 Adjust font size:

U.S. Senator Timothy Michael "Tim" Kaine on Wednesday accepted the Democratic Party's nomination for the U.S. vice presidency.

Kaine, born on Feb. 26, 1958, is a low-key, Spanish-fluency ally of his running mate Hillary Clinton from the pivotal battleground state of Virginia.

Before being elected to the Senate in 2012, Kaine served as governor of Virginia. He was previously vetted for the vice presidency by Barack Obama in his presidential campaign in 2008 and picked by Obama to lead the Democratic National Committee between January 2009 and April 2011.

Kaine, born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, is a welder's son and grew up in the Kansas City metro area where his father owned a small metalworking shop. He graduated from the University of Missouri before earning a law degree in Harvard.

He mastered Spanish when he took a year off from Harvard Law School to work as a Catholic missionary in Honduras. He later described that experience as cementing his commitment to serve others.

He then worked on fair housing and civil right issues as a lawyer and was elected to the city council in Richmond, Virginia, in 1994. He became the city's mayor in 1998, Virginia's lieutenant governor in 2002 and governor in 2006. He led the state through the shooting at Virginia Tech that killed 32 people in 2007.

As a senator, Kaine seeks to impose tougher background checks on gun ownership, supports Obama's proposal of "fast track" for free trade agreements, which Clinton's formal rival Bernie Sanders criticized to great effect during the Democratic primary race.

Kaine is married to Anne Holton and has three children. His father-in-law was the governor of Virginia from 1970 to 1974 and is said to be a political mentor to him. Endi