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Republican U.S. Senate candidate Hung Cao continues to have his own words used against him months after he uttered a pejorative against a Staunton newspaper in an angry response to its reporting on his super PAC, Unleash America.
Cao called the Staunton News Leader a “podunk local newspaper” on a conservative talk show in May in response to the paper’s reporting on questionable spending by the Unleash America super PAC.
Now, months later and with less than 30 days left in the 2024 election season, the ghost of podunk continues to follow Cao.
The campaign of incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Tim Kaine, whom Cao is seeking to unseat, released a television ad Thursday that again highlighted the Republican’s use of the term “podunk” against the News Leader as well as another statement Cao made about driving to Abingdon.
“When my opponent called Staunton ‘podunk’ and wouldn’t even drive to Abingdon, I didn’t get it,” Kaine said in the ad. “To me, being senator means showing up and standing up for you, even if it means being stuck in my car for 27 hours.”
Kaine garnered news coverage when he was stuck on Interstate 95 during his commute from Richmond to Washington, D.C., in January 2022, after a snowstorm hit the region and ground traffic to a halt on the highway.
“Tim Kaine was stuck in his car for 27 hours, but he’s been stuck on our payroll for 30 years. Now he wants us to keep him in office until 2030. Enough is enough. It’s time for something different,” Cao said via email when asked about Kaine’s new ad.
Cao’s campaign released its first television ad of the general election on Tuesday.
A Democrat defends rural Virginia, a Republican stronghold
Cao has given his opponent an opportunity not often awarded to Democrats on the campaign trail: to be the defender of a rural area against a Republican insult.
“It’s rare that you see Republicans take that dismissive attitude towards rural areas or a small town. I don’t really blame Kaine’s team for trying to capitalize on that,” Miles Coleman, associate editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, said. Sabato’s Crystal Ball is a nonpartisan newsletter on American campaigns and elections that is based out of the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics.
Virginia’s Southwest region is a Republican stronghold and a largely rural one where people don’t take kindly to offense against their home.
The last time Kaine was up for election to the U.S. Senate during a presidential year was in 2012, when he ran slightly ahead of former President Barack Obama in rural Virginia. Kaine might not carry the largely rural and solidly Republican 9th and 6th congressional districts this November, but his vote share in those areas could help him perform better than Vice President Kamala Harris in the commonwealth, Coleman said.
“This is an area that voted 2 to 1 against Kaine [in 2018], yet he’s still talking about their issues,” Coleman said and shared an anecdote about watching Kaine speak in support of rural issues, such as access to health care and broadband, in the U.S. Senate.
Recent polling shows Kaine 20 points ahead, and the Crystal Ball, along with the Cook Political Report, list Virginia’s U.S. Senate race as safely Democratic.
Cao’s gaffes on the campaign trail gave opponents ammunition
Cao’s use of “podunk” followed him on the primary campaign trail and into the general election.
One of Cao’s primary opponents, retired Army Ranger Eddie Garcia, said in late May that Cao’s use of the term was another example of a “political class of people” who “overlook and discount” areas like Southside and Southwest Virginia.
Cao went on to win the primary election with more than 60% of the vote in a field of five candidates after receiving an endorsement from former President Donald Trump.
The day after the race was called, Kaine’s campaign released its first digital ad, which highlighted some of Cao’s most prominent gaffes on the primary campaign trail, including Cao’s use of “podunk” against the News Leader and a subsequent comment he made in May about driving from his home in Northern Virginia to Abingdon for a campaign forum during the primary.
“I’ll sit here [behind the camera] all night if you want to, but for me to drive six and a half hours down to Abingdon or something like that and to stand there with four other dudes and to have 30 seconds to answer questions, it’s just ridonkulous, it’s just crazy,” Cao told the moderator of the virtual Republican candidate forum hosted by the Fauquier County GOP in May.
Kaine has outpaced Cao in fundraising by nearly $13 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings made by each campaign on June 30. Updated campaign fundraising numbers should be released by the FEC in mid-October.
