Gina Raimondo is the current Governor of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. She took office on January 6, 2015 alongside Lieutenant Governor Daniel McKee as the successor of Lincoln Chafee. Formerly, she was the Treasurer of Rhode Island (2011 – 2015).
Early Life and Education
Gina Raimondo was born on May 17, 1971 to father Joseph and mother Josephine in Smithfield, Rhode Island. Brought up in an Italian descent family, Gina went to La Salle Academy for early education.
Graduating from high school, Gina got into Harvard College for an undergraduate degree in economics. Later, she joined the University of Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar for a D. Phil. Raimondo is also a J.D. holder from Yale.
Personal Life
45-year-old Gina Raimondo is married to Andre Moffit since 2011. The couple has two children: Cecilia and Thompson Moffit.
Career
Completing J.D. from Yale Law School, Gina Raimondo joined the US District Court for the Southern District of New York as a law clerk. She later worked in Village Ventures and gathered ideas to found her own venture capital firm in Rhode Island. With sufficient capital and partners, Raimondo cofounded Point Judith Capital in 2000. The venture capital was relocated to Boston where Raimondo primarily functioned as a general partner.
Having worked in Point Judith for 10 years, Gina gained significant fame and recognition in Rhode Island politics. Hence, she decided to run for Rhode Island General Treasurer in 2010 election. Raimondo had a landslide victory against Republican candidate Kernan King with 37.9% votes. As an economics graduate from Harvard, Raimondo was useful in handling Rhode Island’s financial matters. Primarily, she led pension policy reforms in 2010. In the same way, Gina had her hands in cutting pensions, cuts in benefits and reduction in return rate for pension investments.
Gina Raimondo introduced a new system to better manage the liquid assets and improve investment performances. As per her system, Ocean State Investment Pool (OSIP), the program could be able to increase investment returns by improving economies of scale. Likewise, Raimondo’s team formulated another idea to reduce the interest rate on payday loans. This would arguably benefit the low earners who frequently look for short terms loans. Moreover, Gina also called for greater transparency in financial matters – including selling and buying of bonds, hedge funds – of Rhode Island.
After serving in the office for four years, Gina decided to run for the 2014 Rhode Island Gubernatorial Election. She gained the Democratic nomination by defeating her Democratic runners with 42.1% votes. In the general election 2014, Gina won the Republican nominee Allan Fung with 40.7% votes as opposed to Fung’s 36.2% votes. Since Raimondo took office January 6, 2015, the unemployment rate has been gradually falling, especially in the last six months. As of Jan 2017, the unemployment rate is at 4.7%. Similarly, the economic growth is believed to have been stronger.
Donald Trump and Gina Raimondo
Representing two different political ideologies, Gina Raimondo and Donald Trump cannot be expected to agree on issues. Governor Raimondo skipped President Trump’s inauguration on January 20, but she attended Governor’s Ball in DC organized by the new President. Gina is also critical about Trump’s immigration ban.
