Gioja was born in Rawson, a suburb of San Juan, Argentina, in 1949. He was raised in nearby San José de Jáchal, and earned a teaching diploma at the localnormal school. He enrolled at the National University of Cuyo, and in his senior year, was elected President of the National University Student Association, graduating with a degree in agronomy in 1973. He married the former Rosa Palacio, with whom he had four children. Governor Eloy Camus named Gioja his private secretary upon taking office in 1973, and the latter also served as San Juan chapter President of Juventud Peronista. In 1976, whilst working for the provincial government, Gioja was detained in a forced disappearance by the military authorities following the March 1976 coup. He was imprisoned for nine months, and has claimed that he was tortured by Major Jorge Olivera. In 1991, Gioja was elected to the Argentine Chamber of Deputies for San Juan for the Popular Justicialist Front. He was re-elected in 1995, but took a seat as a senator following constitutional reform increasing the number of senators. He was re-elected to the Senate in 2001 and led the Peronist bloc in the Senate from 2000, serving as Provisional Senate President from 2002 to 2003. He has been implicated in the Senate scandal in which State Intelligence funds were allegedly used to bribe senators for their vote on a 2000 labour reform package advanced by the President of Argentina at the time, Fernando de la Rúa. Gioja was elected governor in 2003 with the backing of the Front for Victory faction allied to Néstor Kirchner, and was reelected twice as governor, in 2007 and in 2011, increasing his majority every time and winning over 68% of the vote in the 2011 election. He was victim of a helicopter crash on October 11, 2013, during the political campaign for the 2013 legislative election. He was hospitalized immediately. The national deputy Margarita Ferrá de Bartol died in the accident, and the secretary Héctor Pérez and the national deputy Daniel Tomas were hospitalized as well. His elder brother César Gioja is a senator. Another brother, Juan Carlos Gioja, has been a national deputy. On 26 April 2016, he is elected head of the Justicialist Party.
