INCLINE VILLAGE, Nev. — Jim Ross has had a long and fruitful career as a Democratic campaign strategist. Among his victories was electing Gavin Newsom as San Francisco mayor.
Tom Ross has enjoyed similar success on the Republican side. He counts Kevin McCarthy’s election to the Legislature and, later, Congress, among his wins.
But perhaps his most important achievement, Tom Ross said, was working on the 2008 campaign that established California’s independent redistricting commission — “the gold standard” for fair and impartial political map-making. “It needs protecting,” he said.
No, said Jim Ross. It needs overriding.
He backs Newsom’s effort to undo the commission’s work in favor of a gerrymander that could boost Democratic chances of winning the House in 2026 — or else, he fears, “there will be ongoing Republican domination of politics … for decades to come.”
The two are brothers who, despite their differences, harbor an abiding love and respect for one another, along with an ironclad resolve that nothing — no campaign, no candidate, no political issue — can or ever will be allowed to drive a wedge between them.
“Tom’s the best person I know. The best person I know,” Jim, 57, said as his brother, 55, sat across from him at a local burrito joint, tearing up. “There’s issues we could go round and round on, which we’re not going to do.”
“Especially,” said Tom, “with someone you care about and love.”
That sort of fraternal bond, transcending partisanship and one of the most heated political fights of this charged moment, shouldn’t be unusual or particularly noteworthy — even for a pair who make their living working for parties locked in furious combat. But in these vexing and highly contentious times it surely is.
Maybe there’s something others can take away.
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The Ross brothers grew up in Incline Village, not far from where Nevada meets California. That was decades ago, before the forested hamlet on Tahoe’s east shore became a playground for the rich and ultra-rich.
The family — Mom, Dad, four boys and a girl — settled there after John Ross retired from a career in the Air Force, which included three combat tours in Vietnam.
John and his wife, Joan, weren’t especially political, though they were active and civic-minded. Joan was involved in the Catholic church. John, who took up a career in real estate, worked on ways to improve the community.
The lessons they taught their children were grounded in duty, discipline and detail. Early on, the kids learned there’s no such thing as a free ride. Jim got his first job at the 76 station, before he could drive. Tom mowed lawns, washed cars and ran a lemonade stand. The least fortunate among the siblings wore a bear suit and waved a sign, trying to shag customers for their dad’s real estate business.
To this day, the brothers disdain anything that smacks of entitlement. “That’s our family,” Jim said. “We’re all workers.”
Like their parents, the two weren’t politically active growing up. They ended up majoring in government and political science — Jim at Saint Mary’s College in the Bay Area, Tom at Gonzaga University in Washington state — as a kind of default. Both had instructors who brought the subject to life.
Jim’s start in the profession came in his junior year when Clint Reilly, then one of California premier campaign strategists, came to speak to his college class. It was the first time Jim realized it was possible to make a living in politics — and Reilly’s snazzy suit suggested it could be a lucrative one.
Jim interned for Reilly and after graduating and knocking about for a time — teaching skiing in Tahoe, working as a sales rep for Banana Boat sunscreen — he tapped an acquaintance from Reilly’s firm to land a job with Frank Jordan’s 1991 campaign for San Francisco mayor.
From there, Jim moved on to a state Assembly race in Wine Country, just as Tom was graduating and looking for work. Using his connections, Jim helped Tom find a job as the driver for a congressional candidate in the area.
At the time, both were Republicans, like their father. Their non-ideological approach to politics also reflected the thinking of Col. Ross. Public service wasn’t about party pieties, Jim said, but rather “finding a solution to a problem.”
Jim, left, and Tom Ross have only directly competed in a campaign once, on a statewide rent control measure. They talk shop but avoid discussing politics.
(William Hale Irwin / For The Times)
Jim’s drift away from the GOP began when he worked for another Republican Assembly candidate whom he remembers, distastefully, as reflexively partisan, homophobic and anti-worker. His changed outlook solidified after several months working on a 1992 Louisiana congressional race. The grinding poverty he saw in the South was shocking, Jim said, and its remedy seemed well beyond the up-by-your-bootstraps nostrums he’d absorbed.
Jim came to see government as a necessary agent for change and improvement, and that made the Democratic Party a more natural home. “There’s not one thing that has bettered human existence that hasn’t had, at its core, our ability to work collectively,” Jim said. “And our ability to work collectively comes down to government.”
Tom looked on placidly, a Latin rhythm capering overhead.
He believes that success, and personal fulfillment, lies in individual achievement. The Republicans he admires include Jack Kemp, the rare member of his party who focused on urban poverty, and the George W. Bush of 2000, who ran for president as a “compassionate conservative” with a strong record of bipartisan accomplishment as Texas governor.
(Tom is no fan of Donald Trump, finding the president’s casual cruelty toward people particularly off-putting.)
He distinctly remembers the moment, at age 22, when he realized he was standing on his own two feet, financially supporting himself and making his way in the world through the power of his own perseverance.
“For me, that’s what Republicans should be,” Tom said. “How do you give people that experience in life? That’s what we should be trying to do.”
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Newsom’s 2003 campaign for San Francisco mayor was a brutal one, typical of the city’s elbows-out, alley-fighting politics.
It took a physical toll on Jim Ross, Newsom’s campaign manager, who suffered chest pains and, at one point, wound up in the hospital. Was the strain worth it, he wondered. Should he quit?
“The only person I could really call and talk to was Tom,” Jim said. “He understands what it is to work that hard on a campaign. And he wasn’t going to go and leak it to the press, or tell someone who would use it in some way to hurt me.”
That kind of empathy and implicit trust, which runs both ways, far outweighs any political considerations, the two said. Why would they surrender such a deep and meaningful relationship for some short-term tactical gain, or allow a disagreement over personalities or policy to set things asunder?
Jim lives and works out of the East Bay. Tom runs his business from Sacramento. The two faced each other on the campaign battlefield just once, squaring off over a 2018 ballot measure that sought to expand rent control in California. The initiative was rejected.
Though they’ve staked opposing positions on Newsom’s redistricting measure, Proposition 50, Jim has no formal role in the Democratic campaign. Tom is working to defeat it.
The brief airing of their differences was unusual, coming solely at the behest of your friendly columnist. As a rule, the brothers talk business but avoid politics; there’s hardly a need — they already know where each other is coming from. After all, they shared a bedroom growing up.
Jim had a story to tell.
Last spring, as their mother lay dying, the two left the hospital in Reno to shower and get a bit of rest at their father’s place in Incline Village. The phone rang. It was the overnight nurse, calling to let them know their mom had passed away.
“Tom takes the call,” Jim said. “The first thing he says to the nurse is, ‘Are you OK? Is it hard for you to deal with this?’ And that’s how Tom is. Major thing, but he thinks about the other person first.”
He laughed, a loud gale. “I’m not that way.”
Tom had a story to tell.
In 2017, he bought a mountain bike, to celebrate the end of his treatment for non-Hodgkin lymphoma. He’d been worn out by six months of chemotherapy and wasn’t anywhere near full strength. Still, he was determined to tackle one of Tahoe’s most scenic rides, which involves a lung-searing, roughly five-mile climb.
Tom walked partway, then got back on his bike and powered uphill through the last 500 or so yards.
Waiting for him up top was Jim, seated alongside two strangers. “That’s my brother,” he proudly pointed out. “He beat cancer.”
Tom’s eyes welled. His chin quavered and his voice cracked. He paused to collect himself.
“Do I want to sacrifice that relationship for some stupid tweet, or some in-the-moment anger?” he asked. “That connection with someone, you want to cut it over that? That’s just stupid. That’s just silly.”
Jim glowed.
