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Is Hung Cao's Surge the Reason 'Saturday Night Live' Felt the Need to Try and Save Tim Kaine?

Rebecca Downs
Rebecca Downs  |  November 04, 2024 7:45 PM

As Townhall has been covering, NBC News' "Saturday Night Live" has come under fire for allowing Vice President Kamala Harris on the show, a move they had initially decided against when it comes to offering a slot for the party nominees to appear. In one particular sketch, the same episode also looked to help Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine in his race against Republican Hung Cao for the race out of Virginia. While the race is considered to be in Kaine's favor, Cao has proved to be a formidable opponent and has even narrowed the gap in the polls with the election just about upon us.

Michael Shellnberger, who has been documenting the FCC "equal time" concerns to do with Harris, noted that there were also concerns to do with Kaine in his race against Cao. "These are flagrant violations of the law that can't be remedied in under 40 hours," Shellnberger noted in a post from Sunday. 

During Saturday night's episode, Kaine himself appeared in a sketch where the contestants failed to name the senator while playing "What's That Name?" The election edition of such a game show highlighted concerns with Kaine's name recognition. 

After winning $5 each for two questions about being able to recognize Second Gentleman Doug Emhoff and Special Counsel Jack Smith, a candidate known as Ben then tries and miserably fails to identify Kaine.

"Our next question is for $300,000," the game show host reveals. "And here to ask it is the man himself," with Kaine coming out on stage to applause. "Hi, I was Hillary Clinton's vice presidential running mate. At the time you said it was the most important election in American history and that democracy was on the line. It's been less than eight years. What's my name?" 

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As Ben filibusters while trying to name Kaine, the senator reminds Ben that "you voted for me to be one heartbeat away from the Oval Office in an election more recent than the release of 'Zootopia.' What's my name?" 

The sketch then compared Kaine to Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the running mate for this cycle, with the host noting, "not only does he look exactly like Tim Walz, his name was also Tim," though Kaine reminds his name still is Tim. He also brings up his current office. "My name is still Tim. I exist! I'm a senator representing Virginia!"

The audience and even the host mixed Kaine up with Tim Scott, the U.S. senator from South Carolina. Kaine then slouched off in defeat. 

"It’s as though NBC worked with DNC to devise the optimal message for him. That’s flagrant election interference," Shellenberger noted in an earlier post from Sunday, which also tagged the senator. 

Shellenger's thread also included a screenshot from 538, showing a poll from Chism Strategies where Kaine is only just barely leading against Cao with likely voters. The poll surveyed voters in Virginia, Minnesota, and Maryland.

As the poll's write-up noted [Emphasis original]: 

Virginia has the most surprising result of the three states we surveyed. While there have been few surveys of the state, those we have seen have mostly shown Harris performing close to Biden’s 2020 numbers and Tim Kaine running significantly ahead of Harris.

However, our survey tells a different story, with Harris up by .7% (45.2%-44.5%), a statistical tie, and Kaine not leading his Republican opponent Hung Cao by much more (46.4%-44.9%).

The poll was conducted October 28-30 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 4.3 percentage points. 

On Sunday morning, Cao put out a statement highlighting how he planned to win over Virginia voters with his own busy schedule leading up to the election. He even thanked the network. 

"Many of my supporters are saying I should sue NBC for giving free airtime to my opponent Tim Kaine right before the election. I disagree. I was barnstorming 12 towns and cities across Virginia yesterday talking about how we're going to secure our border & lower prices, while Tim was being a human punch-line in New York City," Cao said in his statement. "I want to thank NBC & Tim Kaine for making the contrast so clear about the stakes on Tuesday."

Cao's busy weekend included campaigning with Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R-VA) as well as former and potentially future President Donald Trump. The Trump-Vance campaign has been hopeful that the commonwealth and its 13 electoral votes could once more be in play for the Republican nominee. Cao has also posted about Trump's belief that "if we win Virginia, we win the election."