Tim Kaine has been here before: a leading vice-presidential contender with a complicated stance on abortion that doesn’t neatly align with the one held by the top of the ticket.

His personal opposition to abortion generated significant scrutiny back in 2008 when Barack Obama, an abortion rights supporter, included the then-Virginia governor on his shortlist of running mates. Kaine’s hometown newspaper in Richmond flagged the potentially awkward partnership right away, pointing out the philosophical and policy differences in a side-by-side graphic widely republished by media outlets across the country.


Eight years later, Kaine is again a front-runner in the Democratic veepstakes, and again his views on reproductive rights — an issue central to the Democratic base — are under a microscope in the event Hillary Clinton selects him as her No. 2.

Since joining the Senate in 2012, Kaine has tried to cultivate an image as an abortion-rights champion. He’s pleased reproductive rights’ groups with a perfect voting record. He’s railed against GOP attempts to defund Planned Parenthood. And he’s celebrated in their legal victories, including last week’s Supreme Court ruling tossing out a Texas law that tried limiting a woman’s access to abortion clinics.

But he hasn’t always advanced policies directly in line with those of abortion rights advocacy groups. He pledged in his 2005 gubernatorial campaign to reduce the number of terminated pregnancies in the state by promoting adoption and abstinence-focused education. That cycle, the state NARAL chapter ripped Kaine’s GOP opponent, Jerry Kilgore, as “an extremely anti-choice candidate” but still withheld its endorsement of Kaine because he “embraces many of the restrictions on a woman’s right to choose.”

In a 2007 NARAL scorecard, Kaine was described as a “mixed-choice” governor and his state got an F grade thanks in part to a number of laws and other policies restricting access to abortions. Two years later, Kaine upset both local and national reproductive rights groups by signing a law that authorized the sale of customized “Choose Life” license plates. Kaine argued he was supporting free speech, but his critics complained that the law would fund pro-life organizations and didn’t square with another very important hat that he was wearing at the time: Obama’s personally picked head of the Democratic National Committee.

Kaine brings many other attributes as a running mate, including a widely respected reputation for bipartisanship, after serving just under four years in the Senate, and his own proven political chops winning three straight statewide races in the critical battleground of Virginia. But the hot button issue of abortion, where he has a much more nuanced stance than many of his fellow Democrats, is the baggage he carries.

“People use labels all the time,” Kaine explained in a recent interview on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” an exchange emblematic of the challenge he faces in talking about a politically volatile topic where his religion conflicts with his policy stance. “I’m kind of a traditional Catholic. Personally, I’m opposed to abortion, and personally, I’m opposed to the death penalty.”

Major abortion rights groups and some of their allies on Capitol Hill are tip-toeing around the prospect of a Clinton-Kaine ticket.

Tarina Keene, president of NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia, declined to comment specifically on Kaine’s stance on abortion. Instead, she issued a statement focused on her group’s reasons for endorsing Clinton.

“She is the reproductive freedom champion this country needs. She has a long and unequivocal record of standing up for women’s health and rights. We hope she selects a vice presidential candidate who will continue her fight for reproductive freedom," Keene said, refusing to respond to follow-up questions about Kaine.

Asked whether she had concerns about Kaine’s stance as a Catholic who personally opposes abortion but supports abortion rights policies, California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein replied, “It’s a big issue in our party. Others other than myself would have to say that, particularly whoever the presidential candidate is.”

If nothing else, Kaine is well-practiced in abortion politics. In past races, Virginia Republicans have thrown the kitchen sink at him: The 2005 governor’s race, for example, saw GOP ads designed to alarm rural conservatives by claiming Kaine backed “abortion on demand.” And in a tactic widely seen as designed to drive down turnout among a key Democratic constituency, mysterious messages landed in the mailboxes of suburban women with partial quotes from Kaine discussing how he supported some limits on abortions.

But Kaine has also used his GOP opponents’ staunch conservative views on abortion as a handy foil. In 2005, he swung at Kilgore as someone who “believes that you can’t be anti-abortion unless you want to make abortion a crime.” In his 2012 Senate race, Kaine blasted George Allen for his support of a bill that would define life as starting at conception.

“Why would you claim to be a small government guy and propose such a dramatic reach into people’s lives and personal decisions?” Kaine asked Allen during one of their debates.

Since his 2012 election to the Senate, Kaine has tried to burnish his reputation as a supporter of abortion rights. He’s notched a 100 percent voting score from NARAL three years in a row and joined other Democrats in demanding Obamacare include greater access to contraception. He has co-sponsored a bill that would prohibit states from placing restrictions on abortion.

Among his Senate colleagues, Kaine’s personal views on abortion are seen as a nonfactor.

“We’ve got [abortion] issues in Senate Foreign Relations, and he’s never raised them,” said Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

“He’s pretty clear on why he believes what he believes and why he’s done what he’s done,” said North Dakota Democratic Sen. Heidi Heitkamp, a close friend. “He’s able to readily explain his positions and that means they’ve been well thought-out and not just knee-jerk, ‘This is what I need to say today.’ He’s very principled.”

Maine GOP Sen. Susan Collins, a Roman Catholic who supports abortion rights, told POLITICO that she’s “sympathetic” to Kaine’s predicament. “It’s possible to feel strongly on a personal level about the decisions one would make in one’s own life while embracing the notion that a public policy position may not be in accord with decisions that you’d make,” she said.

Should Kaine get the VP nod, he won’t be entering uncharted territory either when called on to defend the views of a presidential candidate whose abortion stance goes beyond his. All he has to do is look back at his experience in the fall of 2008 as an Obama surrogate. Among his duties that year: speaking to conservative college students at Liberty University in Lynchburg, Virginia, where he patiently explained Obama was open to limiting abortions through health care, education and abstinence but, if elected to the White House, he wouldn’t overturn Roe v. Wade.

Donovan Harrell contributed to this report.

