MARK WARNER: How many of us are a little bit tired of John King's magic board?

Well, let's just say this: 23 years ago.

23- actually, 24 years ago, back in 2000, Virginia was the reddest of red states.

And Tim and I, and a whole lot of you, started a journey where we have brought Virginia back.

And tonight, Virginia is going to vote for who I believe will still be the next president of the United States, Kamala Harris.

[cheers and applause] We need to do a little better job on reporting from Richmond and Northern Virginia.

We always still want to make it a little bit close, but we will be successful.

And in terms of we had three congressional seats up that were jump all.

Two of those three will elect Democrats and the third is open.

Virginia has done its job again.

We did it in 2008.

We did it in 2016.

We did it in 2020.

And again, we did it in 2024.

And one of the main reasons we did it was because who's leading our ticket tonight is my friend of 44 years.

Everybody here has heard the line about how Tim and I met each other at law school, not in the library.

But the people of Virginia tonight have reelected Tim Kaine with an overwhelming margin.

Because, Virginians know that Tim Kaine works for them regardless of region, regardless of partisan affiliation.

On issue after issue, Tim Kaine is a leader.

And tonight Virginians in an overwhelming number, and by the time this is all counted, it will be close to a record number.

Tim Kaine will be returned to the United States Senate, where he and I, [cheering and applause] we've got a lot of work to do.

And I swore I was not going to do this, but it's been kind of a funky night, so I'm going to present him one more time in my favorite way.

Let me introduce to you the future and current junior senator from the Commonwealth of Virginia.

My friend Tim Kaine and Anne Holton.

TIM KAINE: Hey, guys, you look great.

What a great group.

Thank you.

Wow, this is so beautiful to see you guys here.

And, I just got to say, this is my partner who dragged me to Virginia as a Kansas kid 40 years ago.

My wife, Anne.

ANNE HOLTON: Youre welcome.

We are celebrating our 40th anniversary on November 24.

Andit is really good to stand right here in this place and see you.

I want to thank all of you for being here, but especially just giving a thank you to Mark Warner.

We met so many years ago.

I have been his lieutenant governor to the governor, his junior senator to the senior senator.

I say Im like his Colonel Tom Parker to his Elvis Presley.

His Rasputin to the Czar Nicolas.

His Ed McMahon to his Johnny Carson.

You guys are all too young to know any of those.

But weve been friends and colleagues and if you have a good colleague in the work that you do, no matter how hard the work is, it gets a lot easier.

So give it up for Mark.

For Lisa.

Ive got some thank you's, and then its just a short message about tonight.

So I want to start with my great campaign team.

[cheering] Some of you guys know Kéren Charles Dongo.

Kéren is now two for two in big, tough statewide campaigns and has done a great job for me.

And I'm so thrilled that she's put together such a great team.

Raise your hands if you're part of the Kaine campaign team.

Right.

Amazing.

I want to thank my Senate staff and my Senate Chief of Staff Mike Henry.

So, where is Mike?

Right there?

Raise your hands if you're part of the Senate staff.

A lot of our Senate staff here.

And then anybody who has worked or volunteered with the coordinated campaign in Virginia raise your guys hands.

We want to give you a big round of applause.

This is a special place.

This place, not only did I start the reelection campaign here in April, but when I was elected to city council in May of 1994 this was my district.

Jackson Ward is my district.

My district began in the midpoint of Second Street, right outside this door, and then went all the way west into the Fan and west of the Boulevard, Scotts Addition, Northside.

And, this beautiful historic place was sort of closed.

And we did a lot of things in Jackson Ward and with the Hippodrome and other places to revitalize this beautiful neighborhood and this beautiful place.

And when we were thinking about where we wanted to do tonight we said, “you know, why not come to the Hippodrome?” Because it connects to the first thing that I did in public life but also were right around the corner from the Maggie Walker house.

And there are very few sites in the National Park Service that are named after African American women.

Very few.

Very few.

African American women have made a lot of history in this country, they just haven't been recognized for a lot of the history that theyve made.

And obviously tonight we're standing on a precipice where we might be able to make history again, but not just make it, but make it and recognize a very talented African American woman who is a friend, a great leader in her state of California, a great U.S. senator, a great Vice President, Kamala Harris.

And she has won Virginia.

It would have seemed very, very difficult when Anne was growing up, and when I moved here in 1984 to marry her, that Kamala Harris would get 13 electoral votes in Virginia.

Would have seened a little bit like a pipe dream.

But everything we're seeing right now shows that I've got Virginia very solidly in my camp and so does Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz.

Right?

And so, what has it been that has moved Virginia from a place where that would have seemed an impossible pipe dream to a reality, or reality now five elections in a row where Virginians have put electoral votes behind a Democratic candidate?

What has it taken for that to happen?

You.

Its you.

It aint candidates.

It aint strategists.

It ain't pollsters.

It's not slick ad people.

It's you.

It's you Virginians who decided that we call ourselves a commonwealth, the wealth we hold we hold in common.

It's a community word.

But for a lot of our life, we didn't really live like that.

And you just decided at some point along the way what we say about ourselves we try to live up to it and there's nothing we're doing we can't do better.

There's nothing that we can't improve upon.

But this is the generation of Virginians that has just decided, let's just be true to what we say about ourselves.

And that's why Virginia is putting 13 electoral votes behind Kamala Harris and Tim Waltz.

Now it's going to be a long night.

it's going to be a long night because as Virginia has been moving ahead, it's not like everybody's been walking down the path with us.

Some states that have been moving ahead, some states been moving behind, some states standing still.

We got a lot of results still to collect, gather, determine.

And as you know, this could take a while.

And... Weve got to believe.

Weve got to believe.

And I believe because if Virginia can do it, the nation can do it.

If Virginia can go from reliably red to battleground, to battleground trending blue, to now five elections in a row putting electoral votes behind a Democratic candidate willing to cast votes for women.

Cast votes for people of color.

If Virginia can do it, the nation can do it.

And so we've got some hours to go to see what happens in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and Michigan and other states but if we can do it here, we can do it in this country.

And so I just I just want to thank you for trusting me to be somebody who will walk side by side with you.

When I was a missionary in Honduras there was a phrase that was used and it was about the highest compliment that you could pay to someone.

And it was something that I aspired to.

If you said somebody had the capacity to “andando con la gente,” walking with the people.

Andando con la gente.

And that has been just, you know, a touchstone and a North Star for me since I started as a civil rights lawyer here in Richmond in the fall of 1984, embarking on a marriage, moving to a new community, embarking on a vocation, a calling to try to just help people as much as I could.

There is so much more work we have to do in Virginia, in Richmond, in this country, in this world.

And, I'm very fortified by the strength and the energy and enthusiasm and the perseverance that you embody, and by the progress that you've demonstrated.

So it's going to be a long night.

We're going to have, however, all these results go outside Virginia.

We're going to have a lot of work to do.

We're going to have a lot of work to do to promote more peace in the world.

We're going to have a lot of work to do to create this economy that is not just for a few, but for the many, and expand health care options and protect reproductive freedom and fight gun violence and battle for a cleaner environment.

And there's so much work to do, but we've shown in Virginia that if we link arms, we can walk side by side, we can andar con la gente.

They we can walk side by side with people and make progress.

So thank you so much for putting your faith in me.

And you may or may not, over the course of the next six years, agree or disagree with this or that, but I won't embarrass you.

I won't let you down.

I won't cause you to lose a moment of sleep and we will keep moving Virginia and this country...and this country forward.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much!

And then watch TV very late and we're going to go win, right?

We're going to go win!