“An Auburn and an Alabama!” Kaine remarked. “Can Hillary bring people together (or what)?” he said.

At Florida State, Giffords, for whom speaking is difficult because of the shooting, called Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton “tough, courageous” and someone who “will fight to make our families safer. In the White House she will stand up to the gun lobby, which is why I am voting for her.”

Kaine urged supporters in a cramped meeting room at FSU to vote early, saying that early voting provides helpful information to campaigns trying to strategize plans leading up to Election Day.

“Polls can be wrong,” he said. “We like what we see, but we take nothing for granted.”

As he said a day earlier in Cleveland about the importance of Ohio, Kaine called Florida a “checkmate state.”

“If Hillary Clinton wins Florida, Hillary Clinton will be president,” he told the crowd. “There is no way for Donald Trump to be president if Hillary Clinton wins Florida.”

Kaine also made the case for Democratic takeover of the U.S. Senate, where Republicans hold a five-vote edge. He put in a word for Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Patrick Murphy, who is challenging Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla.