Gina Raimondo

Gina Marie Raimondo (; born May 17, 1971) is an American politician and businesswoman who served as the 40th United States secretary of commerce from 2021 to 2025. As a member of the Democratic Party, she served as the 75th governor of Rhode Island from 2015 to 2021 and was the first woman to serve in the role.

Born and raised in Rhode Island, Raimondo began her career in venture capital after law school. In 2000, she co-founded Point Judith Capital, Rhode Island's first venture capital firm. Raimondo entered politics in 2010, when she was elected General Treasurer of Rhode Island. During her first year in office, she prioritized reforming Rhode Island's public employee pension system.

In 2014, Raimondo was elected governor in a three-way contest with 41% of the vote. While in office, Raimondo was elected to serve as vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) for the 2018 election cycle. Reelected in 2018, Raimondo was tasked with overseeing the state's initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In the 2020 presidential election, she served as co-chair of Michael Bloomberg's 2020 presidential campaign. During her tenure, Raimondo consistently maintained a negative net approval rating and was one of the least popular governors in the country.

Described as a "moderate technocrat" in The Washington Post, Raimondo is often characterized as a centrist within her party. Chosen to serve as Secretary of Commerce by President Joe Biden, she played a leading role in negotiations for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021.

Gina Marie Raimondo was born in 1971 in Smithfield, Rhode Island, where she later grew up. Born to a family of Italian descent, she is the youngest of Josephine (Piro) and Joseph Raimondo's three children. Her father, Joseph (1926–2014), made his career at the Bulova watch factory in Providence, Rhode Island; he became unemployed at 56 when the Bulova company moved its operations to China, shuttering the factory in Providence. U.S. Senator Jack Reed is a family friend.

Raimondo graduated from LaSalle Academy in Providence. She was one of the first girls allowed to attend the Catholic school, from which she was graduated as valedictorian. She went on to Harvard College, graduating magna cum laude in 1993 with a Bachelor of Arts degree in economics. While at Harvard, Raimondo resided in Quincy House and served on the staff of The Harvard Crimson. She played rugby at the Radcliffe Rugby Club, later joking that the experience "was good training for a career in politics".

A Rhodes Scholar, Raimondo attended New College, Oxford, where she received a Bachelor of Arts (later promoted to Master of Arts by seniority) and Doctor of Philosophy in 2002 in sociology. Her thesis on single motherhood was supervised by Stephen Nickell and Anne H. Gauthier while she was a postgraduate student of New College, Oxford. Raimondo received her Juris Doctor degree from Yale Law School in 1998. She has said that her experience working at housing and poverty clinics inspired her to attend law school.

After graduating from law school, Raimondo served as a law clerk to federal judge Kimba Wood of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York. Later, Raimondo acted as senior vice president for fund development at the Manhattan offices of Village Ventures, a venture capital firm based in Williamstown, Massachusetts, and backed by Bain Capital and Highland Capital Groups.

Raimondo returned to Rhode Island in 2001 to co-found the state's first venture capital firm, Point Judith Capital. Point Judith later relocated to Boston, Massachusetts. At Point Judith, Raimondo served as a general partner covering health care investments; she retains some executive duties with the firm. Under her leadership, Point Judith grew to over $100 million in assets and reportedly helped grow over 20 businesses.

In 2010, incumbent general treasurer Frank T. Caprio chose to run for governor rather than seek a second consecutive term in office. Describing the position of general treasurer as "a professional job, not a political job", Raimondo announced her candidacy for the position, her first campaign for elected office. In April 2010, former Democratic primary opponent Tom Sgouros dropped out of the race and endorsed Raimondo, leaving her as the only Democratic candidate.

Running a campaign that emphasized her business credentials, Raimondo pledged to "use the power as the chief investment officer to lean on banks to invest again". Her platform called for financial empowerment programs at senior centers and schools, and for protecting consumers from predatory lending and mortgages. On November 2, Raimondo was elected general treasurer, defeating Republican nominee Kernan F. King by a margin of 62% to 38%.

During her first year as general treasurer, she prioritized reforming Rhode Island's public employee pension system, which was 48% funded in 2010. In April 2011, Raimondo led the state retirement board to reduce the state's assumed rate of return on pension investments from 8.25 percent to 7.5 percent.

In May 2011, Raimondo released "Truth in Numbers", a report that advocated benefit cuts as the solution to Rhode Island's pension problems, and she helped lead the effort to cut pensions, along with then-Speaker of the House Gordon Fox. The Rhode Island Retirement Security Act (RIRSA) was enacted by the General Assembly on November 17, 2012, with bipartisan support in both chambers. The next day, then-Governor Lincoln Chafee signed RIRSA into law. RIRSA's legality was challenged in court by the public employee unions, but a settlement was reached in June 2015.

Under Raimondo's tenure, the pension fund was criticized for underperforming when compared with its peers. Raimondo's critics attributed the underperformance to a sharp increase in fees paid to hedge fund managers, while her supporters argued investments in hedge funds stabilize investments during market downturns for more consistent returns over time.

In 2014, Raimondo ran for governor of Rhode Island, and won a contested Democratic primary against Providence mayor Angel Taveras and former Department of Education official Clay Pell. On November 4, 2014, Raimondo won the general election with 41% of the vote in a three-way race versus Republican Allan Fung and Moderate Party nominee Robert J. Healey.

Raimondo was elected to serve as the vice chair of the Democratic Governors Association (DGA) for the 2018 election cycle. She was elected chair of the DGA in 2019. In 2018, Raimondo was reelected, defeating former secretary of state Matt Brown in the Democratic primary and Republican nominee Fung in the general election. Her reelection made her the first candidate to secure a majority of votes for that office since 2006.

Raimondo was the first female governor of Rhode Island, and one of nine incumbent female governors in the United States at the time of her resignation. During her tenure, she was credited with cutting taxes every year and removed eight thousand pages of regulations—30% of the state's regulations. She raised the state minimum wage to $11.50, created a sick-leave entitlement, financed the largest infrastructure program in the state's history, and made community colleges tuition-free. Raimondo appointed more judges of color than any of her predecessors, including Melissa A. Long, the first Black woman to serve on the Rhode Island Supreme Court.

As governor, Raimondo presided over Rhode Island's initial response to the COVID-19 pandemic. On March 28, 2020, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo threatened Raimondo with a lawsuit over a new state quarantine policy that would require people from New York, which had been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, to self-quarantine for 14 days upon arrival in Rhode Island. On March 29, Raimondo repealed the order that specifically referred to New Yorkers, broadened it to include any out-of-state traveler entering Rhode Island with intent to stay. During the pandemic, Rhode Island had the nation's highest per capita levels of testing for COVID-19. In November 2020, she issued guidance limiting gatherings to 10 people, imposed a 10 pm curfew on businesses, and required masks outside when with people outside of one's own household.

Between assuming office and the end of 2019, Raimondo consistently ranked toward the bottom of approval ratings for U.S. governors, and was occasionally ranked the nation's least popular governor. During the COVID-19 pandemic, polling found that Raimondo's approval ratings had jumped significantly for her handling of the crisis, polling at roughly 75%. This was identified as part of a nationwide rally 'round the flag effect that saw nearly every state governor's approval ratings significantly improve.

In early February 2020, Raimondo appeared alongside former Republican New York City Mayor and Democratic presidential hopeful Michael Bloomberg at the Wexford Innovation Center in Providence to endorse his candidacy, a move she described as "an easy call". Raimondo was named a national co-chair for the Bloomberg campaign.

Press secretary Jennifer Bogdan Jones of the Governor's Office told The Providence Journal that Raimondo "is prepared to do whatever it takes to support Mike and defeat President Trump." As campaign co-chair, Raimondo would have "provided advice and attended events". Less than a month later, Bloomberg dropped out of the race and endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden. On the same day, Raimondo also endorsed Biden. She said Bloomberg "obviously" performed poorly on the debate stage but supporting his candidacy "was an easy decision for me at the beginning. But [supporting Biden] is an easy decision, too." Raimondo concluded that it was now time "to unify behind Joe Biden".

In May 2020, Washington Post writer George Will wrote in favor of Raimondo being chosen as Biden's running mate in the 2020 election.

In April 2025, Raimondo said she is thinking of running for President of the United States in 2028.

Following the 2020 United States presidential election, Raimondo was routinely mentioned as a possible cabinet secretary in the incoming Biden administration. Though first seen as a likely Secretary of Health and Human Services, Raimondo announced on December 3, 2020, that she would not be taking that role. She was also considered for Secretary of the Treasury.

On January 7, 2021, Biden announced he would nominate Raimondo to serve as Secretary of Commerce. She appeared before the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation on January 26. On March 1, the Senate voted 84–15 in favor of cloture on the nomination, and confirmed Raimondo to the position the following day by a vote of 84–15.

Raimondo was sworn in by Vice President Kamala Harris on March 3, 2021. In August 2021, Politico reported that Raimondo had become one of the "administration's secret weapons on the Hill" in her role as a negotiator for the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Raimondo was the only Cabinet member not to attend Biden's first State of the Union address on March 1, 2022, since she was chosen as the designated survivor.

Raimondo's approach has drawn praise from centrists, with a Washington Post opinion article praising her as a "technocratic moderate in a moment when her party’s loudest voices are woke, populist and a step or two to her left". In office, Raimondo has been noted for her willingness to work with corporate executives, and was described by Axios as "Tech's Favorite Biden Official". Time called her the federal government's "point woman on AI [policy]". An analysis of Raimondo's schedule in office found that she held at least 101 meetings with representatives from Wall Street firms in her first two years in office.

In 2022, Raimondo was rumored to be a potential candidate to succeed Janet Yellen as Secretary of the Treasury in the aftermath of that year's midterms. This speculation attracted criticism from some progressives due to her status as a political moderate. Senator Elizabeth Warren told The New York Times that she had "real concerns about the department's approach, whether it's approving assault weapon sales, negotiating trade deals or supporting big tech companies".

In January 2025, Raimondo joined the Council on Foreign Relations as a distinguished fellow. In April 2025, Raimondo joined the advisory board for Bloomberg New Economy as its chair.

In November of 2025, Raimondo was appointed Co-Chair of New Jersey Governor-elect Mikie Sherrill’s “Driving New Jersey Forward: Economic Development and Innovation” committee.

In 2026, Raimondo became the CEO of RAISE US, a non-profit organization which aims to address the disruption to American workers caused by artificial intelligence.. The non-profit is backed, and largely funded, by prominent members of big tech such as Anthropic, Microsoft, Amazon and OpenAI, and has prominently spoken out against the idea of universal basic income as a solution to AI-driven job loss, preferring to fund retraining programs.. Raimondo has said previously, prior to becoming CEO of RAISE US, that past federal efforts focused on retraining in response to job loss were ineffective..