Ed Gillespie

Early life

Gillespie was born August 1, 1961 in the Mount Holly Township, and raised in the Browns Mills section of Pemberton Township, New Jersey. He is the son of Conny (Carroll) and Sean (later John) Patrick Gillespie, an emigrant from Ireland who grew up in North Philadelphia. He is a graduate of The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and Pemberton Township High School. While at CUA he began his career on Capitol Hill as a Senate parking lot attendant. Gillespie and his wife Cathy have three children, John, Carrie, and Mollie.

Political career

Gillespie, raised in a Democratic family, began his political career as intern for Andy Ireland, at the time a Democrat from Florida. In 1984, Ireland joined the Republican party with Gillespie following, saying, "I liked President Reagan's approach to governing and it just made sense to me." He worked as telephone solicitor for the Republican National Committee in 1985, and later worked for a decade as a top aide to former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-TX), and was a principal drafter of the GOP's 1994 "Contract With America."

In 1996 he served as communications director for the RNC, and in 1997 he joined the lobbying firm, Barbour, Griffith & Rogers, and advised Senate Republicans during the Impeachment of Bill Clinton.

In 1999, Gillespie worked as the Press Secretary for the Presidential campaign of John Kasich until his withdrawal from the race and endorsement of George W. Bush. In 2000, Gillespie served as senior communications advisor for the presidential campaign of Bush, organizing the party convention program in Philadelphia for Bush's nomination and Bush's inauguration ceremony. He played an aggressive role as spokesman for the Bush campaign during the vote recount in Florida. In 2000 Gillespie founded the lobbying firm Quinn Gillespie & Associates with Democrat Jack Quinn and within a year had an income of $8.5 million and was eleventh on Fortune's list of the most powerful lobbying firms in the US.

One of the firm's clients was Enron, which paid it $1,225,000, including $700,000 to lobby the Department of Energy and the Executive Office of the President to resist efforts to re-regulate the western electricity market during the California Electricity Crisis.

In 2002, he was a strategist for Elizabeth Dole's 2002 Senate campaign. By the end of 2002, Quinn Gillespie & Associates had received $27.4 million in lobbying fees.

In 2003, Gillespie was selected as Chairman of the RNC, serving in that role through the 2004 elections that saw President Bush win re-election and Republicans retain control of the House and Senate. His book Winning Right was released in September 2006.

Gillespie served as Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia from December 2006 to June 2007. In the 2006 Virginia Senate elections he served as spokesman for defeated Virginia Senator George Allen. He had been tapped by Allen as a political adviser for a possible presidential run in 2008 before that loss. In February 2009, Virginia Attorney General Bob McDonnell announced that Gillespie would serve as general chairman of his campaign for governor. Gillespie has served as an adviser to American Crossroads.

White House counselor

In late June 2007, President Bush brought Gillespie into the White House on a full-time basis, to replace the departing Counselor to the President Dan Bartlett with the mandate to help raise Bush's flagging popularity ratings. When Karl Rove also departed in August, the Washington Post described Gillespie as stepping up to do part of Karl Rove's job in the White House. A later Post article described Gillespie's role orchestrating a PR unit dedicated to "selling the surge to American voters and the media." According to the latter article:

From the start of the Bush plan, the White House communications office had been blitzing an e-mail list of as many as 5,000 journalists, lawmakers, lobbyists, conservative bloggers, military groups and others with talking points or rebuttals of criticism...Gillespie arranged several presidential speeches to make strategic arguments, such as comparing Iraq to Vietnam or warning of Iranian interference. When critics assailed Bush for overstating ties between al-Qaeda and the group called al-Qaeda in Iraq, Gillespie organized a Bush speech to make his case. "The whole idea is to take these things on before they become conventional wisdom," said White House communications director Kevin Sullivan. "We have a very short window."

Later in 2007, the Washington Post reported that Gillespie had taken a substantial pay cut to become Bush's counselor. "A disclosure form shows he made nearly $1.3 million in salary and bonus in the previous 18 months at his consulting and public affairs firm.... His annual government salary is $168,000. The form, obtained by the Associated Press, reports that Gillespie, ... a former Capitol Hill aide who co-founded his lobbying shop in 2000 ..., has accumulated a fortune estimated to be between $7.86 million and $19.4 million."

Post-White House

In 2009, Gillespie was the chairman of Bob McDonnell's successful campaign for governor of Virginia.

In January 2010, Gillespie was announced in as the national chairman of the Republican State Leadership Committee (RSLC), which helps elect state attorneys general, lieutenant governors, secretaries of state and state house and senate candidates. After Gillespie was announced chairman the RSLC is reported to have laundered $1.5 million from the Poarch Band of Creek Indians to Alabama Speaker Mike Hubbard and a group associated with Jack Abramoff. From January 2010 to January 2014 the RSLC paid Gilespie $654,000. Gillespie was not legally listed as the RSLC chairman until February 2011, when the organization filed updated documents with the IRS.

In April 2012, Gillespie became a senior advisor to Mitt Romney's 2012 presidential campaign.

2014 U.S. Senate run

In December 2013, Gillespie told Politico that he was considering a first-time political run in 2014 against Mark Warner, a popular Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator in Virginia.

In January 2014, he officially launched his candidacy. He named Chris Leavitt, campaign manager of Mark Obenshain's 2013 run for Virginia Attorney general, his campaign manager. On June 7, 2014, he became the Republican nominee after receiving about 60% of the vote at the state party convention.

Although Warner had been consistently leading Gillespie by double-digit margins in polls before October, Gillespie nearly upset Warner on Election Day, losing by a margin of just 0.8% and 17,723 votes, with 37% turnout. Gillespie conceded the race on November 7, 2014.

2017 gubernatorial run

Speculation began immediately after Gillespie's narrow 2014 loss that he would run for Governor of Virginia in 2017. In October 2015, Gillespie confirmed reports that he was preparing to run for governor in 2017. He officially declared his candidacy in November 2016. Gillespie was considered the favorite to win the Republican nomination.

On June 13, 2017, Gillespie won the Republican nomination for governor and was set to face incumbent Lieutenant Governor Ralph Northam, the Democratic nominee, in the November general election.

In the 2017 gubernatorial campaign up to June 2017, Gillespie ran as an establishment Republican and focused on economic issues rather social issues. According to the New York Times in July 2017, Gillespie “sought to strike a delicate balance when pressed about Mr. Trump, who is highly unpopular here. He refused to say Mr. Trump’s name, but warned that Mr. Northam, a Democrat, risked hurting Virginia’s economy — which relies greatly on the federal government — by attacking the president so fiercely.” 

In August 2017, the Washington Post reported that Gillespie hired Jack Morgan, an operative in the Trump 2016 campaign for president. Morgan has made controversial statements, such as saying that the country is on the brink of civil war and that communists are behind efforts to remove confederate monuments. Morgan had earlier in 2017 called Gillespie a "lobbyist" and said that it would be a "disaster" to elect him governor.

Political positions

The New York Times reported in 2014 that Gillespie had “ties to both Republican grass-roots and establishment wings”.

Abortion

In January 2017 he described himself as pro-life and participated in the March for Life.

Confederate monuments

In August 2017, Gillespie signed a petition opposing the removal of Confederate monuments in Virginia. Gillespie said that removing the monuments was an attempt to erase history.

Economy

In September 2017 Gillespie called for a 10 percent across-the-board income tax cut.

In 2014 he called for increased federal spending in defense, specifically stating that the US Navy needs more ships.

Energy and environment

Asked in 2014 if he accepted the scientific consensus on climate change, Gillespie at first dodged the question but when pressed again, answered, "I believe there is ample scientific evidence that contributes to climate change but I'm not entirely dismissive of those who have a different point of view."

In September 2017 Gillespie supported President Trump's decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement.

In 2014 and 2017 he voiced support for the Keystone Pipeline, Atlantic Coast Pipeline, and Mountain Valley Pipeline and criticized federal regulations that "[slow] down the development of energy infrastructure."

Health care

In 2014, Gillespie said that he was opposed to the 2010 Affordable Care Act (commonly called Obamacare), criticizing it for its "negative impacts" and stating that he would "repeal and replace it."

Immigration

In July and August of 2017, Gillespie said that he opposes “sanctuary cities”, which adopt policies designed to not prosecute people solely for being undocumented. In February 2017, he supported a bill that would prohibit localities in Virginia from enacting sanctuary policies. He has campaigned on tougher immigration enforcement.

In September 2017, Gillespie said that he supported Donald Trump's executive order to ban immigration from seven predominantly Muslim countries. That same month, Gillespie, after initially declining to take a stance on Trump's decision to rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) - which gives temporary stay to some unauthorized immigrants who came to the United States as minors - Gillespie said that he did not "believe that children should be punished for decisions that were not their own, but at the same time, it is important for us to enforce our laws".

Shortly after the Trump administration announced that it would rescind Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, Gillespie said that "dreamers" should not be deported.

LGBT rights

In 2004, as chairman of the RNC, Gillespie opposed same-sex marriage and supported the Republican platform plank in support of constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. In 2014, as a candidate for Virginia governor, Gillespie renounced this position, saying he no longer supported such an amendment.

Redistricting

In a 2017 gubernatorial debate with Ralph Northam, Gillespie declined to express support for nonpartisan redistricting in following the 2020 Census, saying only that experience in other states showed that it was "hard to take the politics out of politics." This position was in contrast to Northram, who promised a nonpartisan commission.