Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich laid out three reasons he believes presumptive Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton selected Sen. Tim Kaine as her running mate during an interview with Fox News host Bill O’Reilly Monday night.
Gingrich, whom Donald Trump seriously considered for vice president, said Clinton’s decision to pick the lifelong politician from Virginia comes down to locking up voters in key demographic groups and regions.
Gingrich said Kaine was “as good a choice” as Clinton’s campaign could have made. He represents the middle of the Democratic Party, not as far left as Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.
“She couldn’t go to the hard left for a candidate, that would’ve been too much,” Gingrich explained.
Second, he argued Kaine “does help in Virginia.” Republicans have won every presidential election since 1976 except for 2008 and 2012 when Barack Obama carried the state. The Old Dominion has become a toss-up state and its Hispanic population has grown in recent years, which is important to Clinton because Latinos are overwhelmingly Democratic voters.
Kaine could be especially helpful at reaching Hispanics in Virginia as well as around the country because of his fluency in Spanish, which he demonstrated during his weekend rally with Clinton in Miami.
But Gingrich added “they [Clinton’s campaign] concluded they couldn’t pick a Latino on the ticket for whatever reason.”
Gingrich called himself a “volunteer” for Trump’s team, but clarified he was “not part of the official campaign.”
