FLORIDA — Hillary Clinton announced Friday that she will be running with Virginia Senator Tim Kaine as her vice presidential running mate.
The announcement came after her “Stronger Together” rally in Tampa, Florida.
Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia emerged as a leading contender after a methodical search, several Democrats close to the campaign say, receiving the stamp of approval from President Barack Obama and former President Bill Clinton.
The decision is a critical one in her quest to defeat Donald Trump and win the White House in November.
Rock Island County Democratic Party Chairman Doug House says her decision will give a little balance to the ticket.
“It may take Virginia out of play in terms of the Republicans and how they view it, but he helps in a lot of other rural states and in coal states,” said House.
Earlier Friday, an attack in Germany appeared to put their time line in flux. The Clinton campaign discussed how to balance their plan to pull the conversation away from the GOP convention — and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s acceptance speech — to her vice presidential pick, according to a source familiar with deliberations.
They considered the difficulties the Trump campaign had balancing the announcement of his running mate, Mike Pence, with the Nice attack, to show he could not recognize the significance of what was happening in France.
The former secretary of state slowly whittled down her list to four top contenders: Kaine; Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack; Labor Secretary Tom Perez; and New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker.
Clinton called the finalists who weren't selected for the vice presidential job before the pick is officially announced, according to multiple aides.
In selecting the battleground of Florida to make her announcement, Clinton is hoping to seize the spotlight from Republicans after their convention in Cleveland. She is set to visit Orlando and Tampa on Friday, but her Kaine is not expected to join her until Saturday at a rally here at Florida International University, where the student body is more than half Hispanic.
The Clinton campaign watched the closing day of the Republican convention with great interest, particularly Trump's acceptance speech, in part to gauge the best timing of her announcement. Her campaign is trying to rally excitement around the Democratic ticket heading into the party's convention next week in Philadelphia, aides said, in addition to blunting Trump's post-convention momentum.
For her part, Clinton intentionally held her pick close to the chest since the vetting process ended this week, Democrats close to the process said, in hopes of keeping her choice a secret until the last possible moment.
All the finalists met with Clinton at different times during this process, Democrats said, including Perez, Booker and Warren during one-on-one meetings last Friday at Clinton's home in Washington.
Clinton started her vice presidential process before her primary fight with Bernie Sanders ended with what aides described as a "fluid" list, including several potential running mates.
Several were eliminated through the process, including Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper, Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and James Stravidis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO and a retired four-star Navy admiral.
