It’s official: Hillary Clinton has chosen Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her running mate

The tick­et is com­plete:

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.

“I’m thrilled to announce my run­ning mate, Tim Kaine, a man who’s devot­ed his life to fight­ing for oth­ers,” Clin­ton tweet­ed.

Kaine is a for­mer gov­er­nor who was elect­ed to the Unit­ed States Sen­ate in 2012, suc­ceed­ing Jim Webb, who left the Sen­ate after serv­ing only one term. (Webb was briefly a can­di­date for the 2016 Demo­c­ra­t­ic pres­i­den­tial nom­i­na­tion last year.) Pri­or to his Sen­ate cam­paign, he also chaired the Demo­c­ra­t­ic Nation­al Committee.

Ide­o­log­i­cal­ly speak­ing, Kaine isn’t the most pro­gres­sive choice Clin­ton could have made, but he’s sol­id, at least. As of last year, Pri­ma­ry Col­ors had rat­ed him a “Good Demo­c­rat” (their high­est rank­ing), with an expect­ed score of 89.6 and an actu­al score of 87.6. He has an over­all life­time score of 90.84% from Pro­gres­sivePunch and a cru­cial life­time score of 70.37%.

Kaine’s stance on trade in par­tic­u­lar is not like­ly to go over well with Bernie Sanders’ most com­mit­ted sup­port­ers, but as Clin­ton is opposed to the Trans-Pacif­ic Part­ner­ship, that will now have to become his posi­tion as well.

If he and Clin­ton win, Kaine will have to resign his U.S. Sen­ate seat. Vir­ginia, how­ev­er, has a Demo­c­ra­t­ic gov­er­nor — Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe — so his imme­di­ate replace­ment would be a Democrat.

Kaine is expect­ed to join Clin­ton on the cam­paign trail tomorrow.