Hung Cao, a Vietnamese immigrant and career U.S. Navy veteran, prevailed Tuesday in a five-candidate race to become the Republican nominee for a U.S. Senate seat from Virginia.
Endorsed by former President Donald Trump, Cao won with 67% of the vote and will take on Sen. Tim Kaine, the two-term Democratic incumbent, in November.
“My message to Tim Kaine is: don’t go away mad, just go away. Thirty years getting rich on our dime is more than enough,” Cao told The Daily Signal. “We need fighters to solve our problems, not politicians.”
Cao’s campaign raised more than $2 million, double the amount of any of the other four Republican Senate candidates.
Cao will be “a tireless fighter to stop inflation, grow our Economy, secure our Border, strongly support our incredible Military/Vets, and defend our always under siege Second Amendment,” Trump said in a post on Truth Social shared on X by Cao.
Cao came to the U.S. as a child from Vietnam in 1975. He and his parents were refugees. He served in the U.S. Navy from 1996 to 2021.
The father of five ran unsuccessfully for office as the GOP nominee in Virginia’s 10th Congressional District in the 2022 midterm elections.
He is the vice president at CACI International Inc., a national security technology firm.
The border crisis is a top priority for Cao, who promises to “build the wall” if elected to stop the “invasion” of illegal immigrants at the southern border.
“We will finish President Trump’s indicatives, and policies, of remain in Mexico and the completion of the border wall system,” the Cao campaign told The Daily Signal. “As Senator, Hung Cao will codify a secure border program into law.”
Cao resides in Purcellville, Virginia, a small town in Loudoun County about 50 miles from Washington, D.C.
Before running for Senate, Kaine served as Virginia’s governor and previously as lieutenant governor. In 2016, he was Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton’s vice presidential running mate.
Cao defeated Jonathan Walker Emord, Eddie Garcia, Scott Parkinson, and Chuck Smith to win the GOP’s Senate nod.
Emord served as vice president of the libertarian Cato Institute and as staff attorney at the Federal Communications Commission. He is the founder of Emord & Associates, a Clifton, Virginia-based law firm, and is the author of five books.
Emord slammed Kaine as a “dead weight,” an empty suit who “just follows the party plan.” He noted that Kaine freely called himself “boring.”
Garcia served as an Army officer from 1999 to 2017. He has subsequently worked as a communications officer at U.S. Central Command and as an Army congressional liaison to the U.S. House of Representatives. Garcia currently works in finance and owns MIL VETS, a networking app for veterans.
Smith spent two decades as a U.S. Navy legal officer before he opened his own law office in Virginia Beach.
Parkinson previously worked for three U.S. senators and served as Ron DeSantis’ chief of staff during the Florida governor’s time in the House of Representatives. He is a vice president of the Club for Growth, a conservative economic policy nonprofit. Parkinson boasted the endorsements of Sens. Tommy Tuberville of Alabama and Mike Lee of Utah, and Reps. Jim Banks of Indiana, Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Eli Crane of Arizona, Byron Donalds and Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, August Pfluger of Texas, and Scott Perry of Pennsylvania.
Virginia hasn’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 2002. Ahead of the primary Election Day, Cao said Monday he thought he was the only candidate in the race who could beat Kaine.
“Hung Cao served in the Navy for 25 years, while Tim Kaine has been in elected office for 30. The taxpayers signed the front of both men’s paychecks for decades,” the Cao campaign told The Daily Signal. “Tim Kaine got rich, while Hung Cao got scars.”