In the first television ad of his 2018 Senate campaign, entitled “Skills,” Senator Tim Kaine focuses on building “an economy that works for all” by spotlighting his successful efforts in the Senate to expand and strengthen job training. “Our economy works best when everyone has a skill,” Kaine says in the ad, specifically mentioning shipbuilding – a trade that employs tens of thousands of Virginians, is critical to the Hampton Roads economy, and helps keep Americans safe by supporting the military’s mission. The ad, which will begin airing Monday as part of a six-figure buy this week in the Norfolk, Richmond, Roanoke and Tri-Cities markets, further solidifies Kaine’s intense focus on growing the economy, creating jobs, and improving the workforce in his campaign. This week, Kaine will meet with workers at an employee town hall at Anheuser-Busch InBev’s 1.2 million square-foot facility in Williamsburg, hold a community conversation with Richmond women- and-minority-owned small businesses, and deliver an address to union workers at the Virginia AFL-CIO convention.

In the Senate, Kaine has been a champion for expanding career and technical education and job training. A co-founder of the bipartisan Senate Career and Technical Education Caucus, Kaine has passed legislation to raise CTE program quality, expand CTE programs to middle schoolers, and strengthen vocational counseling for students through the Career Ready Act, which is featured in the ad. As Governor, Kaine created Governor’s Career and Technical Academies in Virginia, which The Washington Post described at the time as helping to “align instruction in science, technology, engineering and math with the needs of the modern workplace and secondary education, so students learn the skills that high-demand and high-wage careers require.”

In the ad, Kaine also reflects on his upbringing in a middle class family, working in his dad’s union ironworking shop, and the values of hard work and having a skill that Kaine learned there. Kaine explains that the skills he learned in his dad’s shop allowed him to teach kids carpentry and welding while he was serving as a missionary in Honduras.

Transcript of ‘Skills’:

My dad ran an ironworking shop. I learned hard work and a trade from him and his workers.

Then I went to Honduras as a missionary and taught kids to be carpenters and welders.

Our economy works best when everyone has a skill, like shipbuilding.

That’s why I created career and technical academies across Virginia, and passed a law to expand job training for young people.

I’m Tim Kaine, and I approve this message. Here in Virginia, we have to build an economy that works for all.