Just a few short months ago, very few people had heard of Tim Kaine, now the senator from Virginia could be the next vice-president.
But he's not taking anything for granted, spending almost every hour on the campaign trail in the final days of the election.
"I left the house on Sunday, went to mass, knowing that it will be 9 days of sprinting on the road."
That road is winding through the battle ground state of Florida, including a stop in Ft. Myers.
"You always hope you don't say the wrong city because you are doing so many different events."
And every event matters, especially as the race between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton is almost neck and neck.
"No I'm not surprised the race is close, I always assumed that It would be, in fact I encouraged Hillary to run in April of 2014, but no matter what you see in a poll, you know this is hard to do, no woman has ever been president."
But Kaine says factors beyond the campaign's control are influencing the voters, like Russia meddling in the election.
and the FBI decision to re-open the investigation into his running mate's emails.
"Leaks coming out of the FBI, leaks that the director can't control, those are two huge issues that we are going to have to think through carefully."
Senator Kaine says he wanted to stick to the issues affecting voters. We asked him how a Clinton Administration would handle pollution from Lake Okeechobee.
"It's kind of a scientific question about what do you do that's right for the lake that doesn't cause problems for others. You got to have good science, and this is a fundamental issue in the race Hillary and I believe in science, especially around something like climate, Donald Trump and his running mate won't accept climate science."
Now that he has stepped onto the national stage, Kaine leans on his experience as a mayor and governor in Virginia that helped prepare him for this moment.
"Just in terms of attitudes of voters, 22 years of doing work in Virginia, I'm amazed that situations may be different but people are the same."
Kaine says a Hillary Clinton Administration will fix Obamacare, not replace it, by increasing subsidies to help bring down rising premiums.
The Administration would also work with states like Florida who don't want to expand medicaid for those who aren't covered by Obamacare.
