Twenty-four-year-olds aren’t supposed to be able to raise $450,000.
Yet Ricky Gill, the Republican candidate for Congress in California’s 9th Congressional District, has done just that as he mounts a threatening campaign against a well-liked third-term incumbent.
Currently a third-year law student at University of California, Berkley, Gill’s fundraising haul has thrown him into the political spotlight as Republicans eye an opportunity to oust Democratic Representative Jerry McNerney in San Joaquin County. Gathering all of his donations from individual donors, Gill raised $446,484 in the second quarter. This amount — the third most for a non-incumbent Republican House candidate — caught the attention of the National Republican Campaign Committee, which named Gill as one of their “On the Radar” candidates.
Gill, who will turn 25 — the constitutionally minimum age for a congressional seat — this May, said that though his age may trigger a double-take, he is confident that his campaign can assuage any doubts.
“People naturally may come to the table with some preconceptions, but all these presumptions are rebuttable. Leadership is partly about experience, but it’s also about vision,” he explained.
“I think age is nothing but a number,” Gill later added.
However, Gill is not without experience. He has amassed a resume well beyond his years, especially on one of his main issues: public education. At age 17, Gill was chosen by California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger as the student member of the California State Board of Education, a highly competitive appointment. While at the University, Gill, whose parents are from India and Uganda, performed research on higher education attainment for first-generation Americans at Educational Testing Services.
Outside of his research at ETS, Gill, a Wilson School major, said he was “very serious about academics.” He was not a member of an eating club and kept a relatively low profile in the community outside of his service as an undergraduate fellow in Butler College.
“The University and also the Wilson School give you a very strong analytical foundation to probe very important policy matters,” he said. Once he began his campaign, Gill explained, one of the first things he did was write a series of campaign policy papers that were a product of his Wilson School education.
Once Gill published these documents, he almost immediately heard from psychology and Wilson School professor Daniel Oppenheimer, who taught Gill in a Wilson School task force on education reform. Oppenheimer said that though he wasn’t surprised that Gill has been so successful, he is struck by Gill’s rapid fundraising.
“I never doubted that he’d be able to build enough support to have a legitimate shot at winning, but the speed at which he’s brought in campaign resources is pretty remarkable,” Oppenheimer said in an email.
Gill’s main mentor at the University, though, was former congressman and former Wilson School visiting professor Jim Leach, who advised Gill on his thesis and now advises his former student’s campaign informally. Leach is now the chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities.
Gill, unlike more experienced politicians, does not have connections with top-line donors. But Gill said that he has leveraged University connections — both classmates and older alumni — to boost his fundraising totals. Gill noted, however, that his fundraising plan did not significantly rely on these classmates, many of whom are young professionals and lack the bankroll to make large contributions.
“They’re on the file, but because they’re new to the workforce, they weren’t the biggest donations I received,” Gill explained.
It remains unclear how Gill will fare in the redistricted 9th District, which, though more Democratic, is also more familiar with the Central Valley native. McNerney, who barely won reelection in 2010, has moved to San Joaquin County to remain within his district’s new lines. Gill has used McNerney’s relocation to support his central argument against his competitor: McNerney is not representative of the region.
“This race is about local representation, whether or not this congressional district has the capacity and the mental reserve to represent itself in Congress,” Gill said.