They may be running alongside two very different presidential nominees, but Tim Kaine and Mike Pence have a surprising amount in common.
As the vice-presidential nominees prepare to face off in their first debate tonight, here’s a look at the lives, policy positions and political trajectories of both men.
Click here to find out how to watch live as Kaine and Pence spar in vice-presidential debate
Mike Pence
Donald Trump‘s running mate was arguably a safe choice for his campaign. Mike Pence, 57, is generally considered to be a well-liked member of the Republican Party, and he has the political experience and calm demeanour that Trump lacks.
In spite of his close ties to the Republicans, Pence was raised in an Irish-Catholic Democratic household. He was one of six children and has three children with his wife of 30 years, Karen.
Pence trained as a lawyer, and after graduating from Indiana University in 1986, worked in private practice for several years. He would eventually find himself heading up the Indiana Policy Review Foundation, a local think tank. Following two failed bids for a seat in Congress (in 1988 and again in 1990), Pence became a conservative talk-radio host for several years.
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He finally secured a seat in the House of Representatives in 2000, and would serve until 2012, when he announced plans to run for governor of Indiana. He was elected in 2012, and since then has presided over some of the most socially conservative state legislation in the United States.
Pence is fond of describing himself as “a Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.”
Pence has been attending an evangelical church for many years, and one of his main goals has been securing the evangelical vote for Trump.
Under Pence, Indiana now has some of the most restrictive abortion access laws in America. The governor also made national headlines when he signed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act into law, allowing Indiana business owners to refuse service to people based on their religious convictions. The act, widely perceived as inviting discrimination against the LGBT community, was eventually amended.
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Pence has also endorsed legislation and issued executive orders that re-introduced mandatory minimum sentences for drug convictions and blocked Syrian refugees from settling in Indiana.
In spite of some of these controversies, Pence has been praised for presiding over Indiana’s improving economy and falling unemployment rate.
Tim Kaine
The Democratic vice-presidential nominee and former Virginia governor is also a lawyer by trade, having attended Harvard in the early 1980s. Prior to entering politics in the mid-1990s, Tim Kaine largely focused on civil rights cases, representing people who had been discriminated against as result of their race or a disability.
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Kaine’s father-in-law, A. Linwood Holton Jr., was himself a former governor of Virginia and a driving force in the desegregation of that state’s schools. Anne Holton and Kaine were married in 1984. Like Pence and his wife, the couple have three grown children. They have lived in the same Richmond neighbourhood for over 30 years.
Raised in Kansas City, Kaine, 58, is one of only 30 Americans ever to serve as a mayor (of Richmond), a governor (of Virginia) and now a senator. He’s looking to add vice-president to that record in November, and if he does, he’ll be one of only two Roman Catholics ever to hold the position. The first was Joe Biden.
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Kaine’s devotion to his church, like Pence’s, is well established — but he remains a devout Roman Catholic. Kaine was educated by Jesuit priests, and took a year off from his studies at Harvard in the early 1980s to travel to Honduras, where he worked in a Jesuit technical school teaching carpentry and welding.
As a Democrat, Kaine’s religious views and his politics have not always lined up.
While the Catholic Church is staunchly opposed to abortion and discourages contraception, Kaine has publicly supported Roe v. Wade, the seminal pro-choice case in the United States. He has acknowledged that his personal and political stances may clash, and has been criticized for flip-flopping on abortion rights.
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While he initially pushed for abstinence-only sex education, as governor Kaine has pulled funding for those programs. In an email correspondence obtained by Politico, Kaine wrote to the head of a women’s rights group that “abstinence-only is more of a political statement than a true effort to help youngsters.”
On issues like education, taxation and gun control, he and Hillary Clinton remain very much in sync. Kaine was governor when 32 people were gunned down at Virginia Tech, and he supports restricting the sale of magazines carrying more than 10 bullets.
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Kaine’s willingness to accept (legal) paid trips and gifts from private entities and his ties to energy interests have both proven controversial. He sponsored legislation that would have opened Virginia’s coast to drilling, for instance, while he accepted tens of thousands of dollars in campaign donations from oil and gas companies.