Terry McAuliffe

Terence Richard McAuliffe (born February 9, 1957) is an American businessman and politician who served as the 72nd governor of Virginia from 2014 to 2018. A member of the Democratic Party, he was co-chairman of President Bill Clinton's 1996 reelection campaign, co-chairman of the 1997 Presidential Inaugural Committee, chairman of the 2000 Democratic National Convention, chairman of the Democratic National Committee from 2001 to 2005 and chairman of Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign.

McAuliffe was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2009 Virginia gubernatorial election. In the 2013 gubernatorial election, after he ran unopposed in the Democratic primary, he defeated Republican Ken Cuccinelli and Libertarian Robert Sarvis in the general election. Due to Virginia law barring governors from serving consecutive terms, he was succeeded by his lieutenant governor, Ralph Northam. McAuliffe ran for a non-consecutive second term as governor in the 2021 gubernatorial election but lost to Republican nominee Glenn Youngkin.

Throughout McAuliffe's term in office, the state had a Republican-controlled legislature and McAuliffe issued a then-record number of vetoes for a Virginia governor; the record was later surpassed by Youngkin. As governor, McAuliffe focused heavily on economic development and restored voting rights to a record number of released felons. During his final year in office, he responded to the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, condemning the rally and calling for the removal of Confederate monuments from public spaces throughout Virginia; Northam began the removal of these monuments a few years later.

Terence Richard McAuliffe was born on February 9, 1957, and raised in Syracuse, New York, the son of Mildred Katherine (née Lonergan) and Jack McAuliffe. His father was a real estate agent and local Democratic politician. The family is of Irish descent.

In 1975, McAuliffe graduated from Bishop Ludden Junior/Senior High School. In 1979, he earned a bachelor's degree from the Catholic University of America, where he served as a resident adviser. After graduating, McAuliffe worked for President Jimmy Carter's re-election campaign, becoming the national finance director at age 22. Following the unsuccessful campaign, McAuliffe attended Georgetown University Law Center, where he obtained his Juris Doctor degree in 1984.

At the age of 14, McAuliffe started his first business, McAuliffe Driveway Maintenance, sealing driveways and parking lots.

In 1985, McAuliffe helped found the Federal City National Bank, a Washington, D.C.–based local bank. In January 1988, when he was thirty years old, the bank's board elected him as chairman, making him the youngest chairman in the United States Federal Reserve Bank's charter association. In 1991, he negotiated a merger with Credit International Bank, which he called his "greatest business experience." He became the vice-chairman of the newly merged bank.

In 1979, McAuliffe met Richard Swann, a lawyer who was in charge of the fundraising for Jimmy Carter's presidential campaign in Florida. In 1988, he married Swann's daughter, Dorothy. McAuliffe purchased some of American Pioneer's real estate from the Resolution Trust Corporation. His equal partner in the deal was a pension fund controlled by the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) and the National Electrical Contractors Association (NECA). They purchased real estate valued at $50 million for $38.7 million; McAuliffe received a 50% equity stake. In 1996, he acquired a distressed housebuilding company, American Heritage Homes, which was on the brink of bankruptcy. He served as chairman of American Heritage. By 1998, he had built American Heritage Homes into one of Central Florida's biggest homebuilding companies. By 1999, the company was building more than 1,000 single family homes per year. In late 2002, KB Home bought American Heritage Homes for $74 million.

In 1997, McAuliffe invested $100,000 as an angel investor in Global Crossing, a Bermuda–registered telecommunications company. Global Crossing went public in 1998. In 1999, he sold most of his holdings for $8.1 million.

McAuliffe joined ZeniMax Media as company advisor in 2000.

McAuliffe had a prolific fundraising career within the Democratic Party and a personal and political relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton. McAuliffe and his staff raised $275 million, then an unprecedented amount, for Clinton's causes while president. After Bill Clinton's tenure ended, he guaranteed the Clintons' $1.35 million mortgage for their home in Chappaqua, New York. The deal raised ethical questions. In 1999, he served as chairman of America's Millennium Celebration under Clinton. In 2000, he chaired a fundraiser with the Clintons to benefit Vice President Al Gore, setting a fundraising record of $26.3 million.

McAuliffe told to The New York Times in 1999, "I've met all of my business contacts through politics. It's all interrelated." When he meets a new business contact, he continued, "Then I raise money from them." He acknowledged that the success of his business dealings stemmed partly from his relationship with Bill Clinton, saying, "No question, that's a piece of it." He also credited his ties to former congressmen Dick Gephardt and Tony Coelho, his Rolodex of 5,000-plus names, and his ability to personally relate to people. In 2004, he was one of the five-member board of directors of the Clinton Foundation. He remained on the board until 2013, re-joining it in 2024. He told New York Times reporter Mark Leibovich in 2012 that his Rolodex held 18,632 names.

In June 2000, as organizers of the 2000 Democratic National Convention were working to raise $7 million, convention chairman Roy Romer resigned to become superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District. McAuliffe immediately accepted appointment as Romer's replacement when asked on a phone call by presumptive presidential nominee Al Gore. Already in the news for a record $26 million fundraiser with Bill Clinton the month prior, he promised that money would be a "non-issue" for the convention, and that the outstanding $7 million would be raised "very quickly". Many in the party praised his selection, which was widely seen to represent the growth in his influence, with James Carville telling The New York Times that "his stock is trading at an all-time high".

In February 2001, McAuliffe was elected chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and served until February 2005. During his tenure, the DNC raised $578 million and emerged from debt for the first time in its history. Prior to serving as chairman of the DNC, he served as chairman of the DNC Business Leadership Forum in 1993 and as the DNC finance chairman in 1994.

In 2001, McAuliffe founded the Voting Rights Institute. In June 2001, he announced the founding of the Hispanic Voter Outreach Project to reach more Hispanic voters. The same year, he founded the Women's Vote Center to educate, engage and mobilize women at the local level to run for office.

On November 8, 2012, McAuliffe emailed supporters announcing his intention to run for governor of Virginia in 2013. In his email he stated, "It is absolutely clear to me that Virginians want their next Governor to focus on job creation and common sense fiscal responsibility instead of divisive partisan issues."

On April 2, 2013, McAuliffe became the Democratic nominee, as he ran unopposed. In the general, he campaigned against Republican nominee (and sitting attorney general of Virginia) Ken Cuccinelli, and Libertarian nominee Robert Sarvis. He won 47.8% of the vote; Cuccinelli and Sarvis garnered 45.2% and 6.5%, respectively. He broke a 40-year trend and was the first candidate of the sitting president's party elected governor of Virginia since 1973.

McAuliffe took the oath of office on January 11, 2014. Following the ceremony, he signed four executive orders, including one instituting a ban on gifts over $100 to members of the administration, and an order prohibiting discrimination against state employees for sexual orientation and gender identity. The other executive orders dealt with government continuity.

As governor, McAuliffe issued a record 120 vetoes. He vetoed more bills than his three predecessors combined. He vetoed bills mainly concerning social legislation, including abortion and LGBT rights, along with the environment and voting rights. Throughout his term, the state legislature did not overturn any of the vetoes he issued. During his tenure, Virginia collected more than $20 billion in new capital investment, $7 billion more than any previous governor. He participated in more than 35 trade and marketing missions to five continents, more than any other preceding governor, to promote state tourism and other products.

In 2014, President Barack Obama appointed McAuliffe to the Council of Governors. That same year, the Chesapeake Bay Program appointed him to chair its executive council. He was elected as vice chair of the National Governors Association in July 2015 and became chair of the organization in July 2016.

After the 2016 presidential election, McAuliffe was viewed as a potential candidate for the Democratic nomination for president in 2020. In 2017, McAuliffe's confidantes told The Hill he was "seriously considering a 2020 presidential run." McAuliffe told a group of union leaders "If I can wrestle an alligator, I can certainly wrestle Donald Trump," referencing his wrestling match with an alligator to secure a political donation. In April 2019, McAuliffe announced that he would not pursue the presidency in 2020 and would focus on supporting Democrats in the 2019 Virginia elections.

In February 2018, he began serving as the state engagement chair of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. He is currently a senior advisor at the MarTech startup, Applecart.

In January 2022, after losing his re-election bid for Governor, a website was launched for Common Good, an organization founded by McAuliffe to "[help] Democratic campaigns and organizations win critical races in Virginia and across the country."

In 2025, former president Joe Biden appointed McAuliffe to the Board of Trustees of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Shortly after, Trump revoked the appointment.

McAuliffe joined Natural Allies for a Clean Energy Future as a co-chair in November 2025. The organization advocates for the use of natural gas as part of the United States' broader energy-transition strategy.

McAuliffe has been a consistent supporter of abortion rights.

In 2017, he vetoed a bill that would have defunded Planned Parenthood in Virginia.

McAuliffe has argued for workforce development, with education proposals being funded through savings from the proposed Medicaid expansion.

In his 2013 gubernatorial campaign, McAuliffe pledged to deemphasize the number of standardized tests in schools and reduce the number of them. The General Assembly passed a bipartisan bill in 2015, signed by McAuliffe, that directed the Virginia Board of Education to adopt new accreditation standards that "recognize the progress of schools that do not meet accreditation benchmarks but have significantly improved their pass rates." In 2017, the board, which primarily consisted of McAuliffe appointees, implemented the law and made significant changes to the criteria for accreditation, including reducing the number of standardized tests required for graduation and adding metrics such as absenteeism, achievement gaps, and improvement on the state exams.

In 2016, McAuliffe vetoed a bill that would have allowed parents to block books containing "sexually explicit content" in schools; the bill was known as the "Beloved bill" because its supporters cited the Toni Morrison novel (as well as other books, such as Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man and Cormac McCarthy's The Road) as examples of objectionable works. Republicans and the Family Foundation of Virginia supported the bill; the National Council of Teachers of English and the National Coalition Against Censorship opposed it. McAuliffe vetoed a similar bill in 2017. In 2017, McAuliffe also vetoed Republican-backed legislation to increase the number of charter schools; in vetoing the bill, McAuliffe cited its removal of authority from local school boards to make decisions about local public schools and expressed concern about diverting funding from public schools.

McAuliffe married Dorothy Swann on October 8, 1988. They reside in McLean, Virginia with their five children. Their son Jack attended the United States Naval Academy and became a Marine. Their daughter, Sally, graduated from Syracuse University in 2022.

In March 2018, George Mason University appointed McAuliffe as a visiting professor.