Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe is an establishment Democratic Party loyalist who has never been afraid to throw a verbal punch, ask for a buck, or bust a dance move.
In his bid to return to the Virginia governor’s mansion, McAuliffe, 64, has nationalized the race, making the campaign in large part about whether it is acceptable for voters to elect a man endorsed by former President Donald Trump.
The strategy could be make-or-break for McAuliffe. Recent polls suggest that the race is a toss-up between McAuliffe and Republican gubernatorial nominee Glenn Youngkin, a concerning sign for McAuliffe in a state that President Joe Biden won by 10 points in 2020.
MEET GLENN YOUNGKIN, THE REPUBLICAN GUBERNATORIAL CANDIDATE WHO MIGHT FLIP VIRGINIA
Governor once, governor again?
McAuliffe was governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018. He is seeking a second, nonconsecutive term. The Virginia state constitution prohibits back-to-back gubernatorial terms.
If successful, McAuliffe will be only the third Virginia governor elected to two terms. Gov. Mills Edwin Godwin was the last, doing so as a Democrat during his first 1966-1970 term and a Republican during his 1974-1978 term.
Like any candidate seeking a second stint in office, McAuliffe toots his own horn and points to favorable figures from his firsts gubernatorial term: Job growth, economic development, and increases in education spending.
But because Republicans controlled both the state House and Senate for nearly all of his time in office, McAuliffe could not get through many of his priorities, like Medicaid expansion (which later passed in 2018). He set a record for the most bills vetoed by a Virginia governor.
If the Virginia Legislature holds Democratic control over both chambers, McAuliffe may be able to see much more of his agenda become law: universal pre-K education, restricting gun rights and banning assault weapons, tackling prescription drug prices, and pushing policies to get Virginia to 100% “clean energy” by 2035.
Terry McAuliffe
Nationalizing the race
For much of the campaign, McAuliffe has painted his Republican opponent as an extremist and tied him to Trump, despite Youngkin having a drastically different temperament and political approach than the former president.
In the closing weeks of the campaign, McAuliffe criticized Youngkin for not supporting mandatory vaccination against COVID-19 and claimed he was spreading “anti-vax” talking points, falsely claimed that Youngkin wants to ban Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved and other books from schools, and warned that he would ban abortion (Youngkin supports banning abortion after a fetus can feel pain).
A parade of high-profile Democrats came to campaign for McAuliffe in the closing weeks of the campaign, including President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, Vice President Kamala Harris, and former Georgia gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.
Decades in Democratic politics
McAuliffe’s first job was sealing driveways and parking lots in his hometown of Syracuse, New York. He later made millions of dollars through starting companies and being a banker, real estate developer, and venture capitalist, with political operations sprinkled throughout.
Shortly after graduating from the Catholic University of America, McAuliffe became the finance director for President Jimmy Carter’s reelection campaign at age 22. After a break for law school and business, he became the finance director for then-Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt’s 1988 presidential campaign.
Don’t call him a scholarly legal mind, though: McAuliffe recalled in his 2007 memoir What a Party that he missed so many of his classes at Georgetown Law while pursuing business ventures and fundraising for Democrats that he had to “learn the law from scratch” in order to pass the bar exam.
McAuliffe became close friends with President Bill Clinton and his family, frequently playing golf with the president and vacationing with them. A month after Clinton’s impeachment trial, sparked by the Monica Lewinski scandal, McAuliffe was the fourth wheel on a family ski vacation for Chelsea Clinton’s 19th birthday. When the Clintons couldn’t get a bank to loan them money to buy a house in New York, McAuliffe personally lent them $1.35 million.
McAuliffe was the co-chairman of Clinton’s 1996 reelection campaign and the chairman of Hillary Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign.
The Supreme Court’s decision in Bush v. Gore that made George W. Bush president pushed McAuliffe into becoming chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005. One of his biggest criticisms of John Kerry’s 2004 presidential campaign was that he did not directly criticize Bush more.
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Family life
McAuliffe met his wife, Dorothy Swann McAuliffe, through her late father, Richard Swann, who was President Jimmy Carter’s finance chairman. They have five children together.
