Terry’s political experience started with his father, Jack McAuliffe, who taught Terry from a very young age that Democrats fight for working men and women.

Soon after graduating from Catholic University, Terry took a job with the Carter-Mondale re-election campaign. Always willing to go the extra mile for the right cause and never constrained by rules of convention, Terry gained national attention when he wrestled a live alligator in order to raise $15,000 for the campaign.

Since then, he hasn’t looked back. Terry’s volunteered his time for Democratic causes and candidates for over 30 years so that he could advocate for working families across the country.

The Democratic National Committee

After a tough and controversial loss in the 2000 Presidential Election, Democrats looked to Terry to turn things around. And from 2001 to 2005, Terry served as Chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

Under Terry’s leadership, the DNC underwent a long-term rebuilding process that ultimately helped Democrats take control of Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008. The Party invested in a 178 million person voter file used by Barack Obama’s campaign in Virginia that helped him carry the Commonwealth in the 2008 Presidential race. Former Gore campaign chairwoman Donna Brazile noted that, “Terry has put the party in a strong strategic position.”

Bringing a business approach to manage the DNC, Terry brought the party out of debt for the first time in modern history. His successor, Howard Dean, said, “I am a big fan of Terry McAuliffe. Everything we do today stands on the shoulders of his fundraising efforts.”

In the wake of voter suppression in Florida during the 2000 election, the DNC founded the Voting Rights Institute in order to take action against intimidation, election errors, and disenfranchisement. Terry restructured the Presidential nominating calendar, moving states like South Carolina, New Mexico and Arizona earlier in order to give African Americans and Latinos more influence in the primary process. Terry founded the DNC’s Women’s Vote Center in order to increase turnout in elections and establish a network of women from all backgrounds.

Terry also served as the Democratic Party’s most vocal and vociferous critic of President George W. Bush’s agenda, including the former President’s plan to privatize social security. Terry spoke out for the need to end our nation’s reliance on foreign oil and to develop renewable energy sources that are better for the environment and can create good jobs.

Money & Politics

Even as Terry gained a reputation for being one of the best fundraisers in the Democratic Party (Vice President Al Gore once called him “The greatest fundraiser in the history of the universe), Terry was working to change how money influenced politics.

Terry frequently says one of his proudest moments was serving as co-chairman of the Inaugural Committee following President Bill Clinton’s re-election in 1996. Under Terry’s leadership, the Committee banned all corporate and overseas contributions and limited individual donations to $100 each.

As Chairman of the DNC, Terry also favored grassroots fundraising. In fact, when a group of Enron lobbyists threatened to stop donating money to the Party in July of 2001, accusing Terry of being too rough on them, Terry threw them out of his office. He declared, “I don’t want your money.”
Instead, Terry relied on new technologies to increase the DNC’s donor base. Under his watch, the DNC’s email list grew from 70,000 to 3.8 million and the small donor base increased sevenfold to 2.7 million.

But Terry didn’t just bring a new approach to raising money. He also changed how the Party spent its funds. Prior to Terry’s chairmanship, media consultants typically received a large percentage of the media they purchased for the DNC, a clear conflict of interest since encouraging more media buying yielded greater fees. Terry put a stop to that. Preparing for John Kerry’s re-election, Terry announced he would hold fees to just one percent. Because there was large demand to work on a Presidential race, seven top firms agreed to the one percent contract in order to compete for the business. As Terry said, “the gravy train was over for Democratic political consultants.”

On the campaign trail

Ever since he graduated college, Terry has worked to help elect Democrat Presidential candidates, including President Jimmy Carter and Vice President Mondale, Rep. Dick Gephardt, President Bill Clinton, and Vice President Al Gore.

Chairing an event for the DNC to benefit Gore’s 2000 Presidential campaign, Terry ran the single largest political fundraising event ever held, bringing in $26.3 million by selling more than 12,000 tickets to an event at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. In fact, the event was so successful that when the Democratic National Convention experienced financial trouble later that year, the Vice President called on Terry to take over and Chair the Convention and turn things around. Within just a few weeks, Terry resolved the financial situation and pulled off an incredibly successful Convention that resulted in a 12 point post-Convention bounce for the Vice President.

Terry was also a force in the 2008 Presidential Election. In the primary, he served as a Chairman of Hillary Clinton’s historic campaign. Senator Clinton received more votes than any prior candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination – putting 18 million cracks in the glass ceiling. As Chairman, Terry spent 17 months traveling to nearly 50 states.

But while Terry remained loyal to his friend Hillary Clinton during the primaries, as soon as the election ended, he led the charge for Hillary Clinton supporters to get behind Barack Obama’s candidacy. Before Hillary and Obama went to Unity, NH, Terry hosted an historic event with Hillary and Obama to bring the party together. He traveled the country on behalf of the Obama campaign, including 30 localities in the Commonwealth of Virginia. While many pundits speculated that Democrats would have a hard time unifying behind Obama’s candidacy after the long primary, exit polls show he won 92% of Democrats here in Virginia.