Mark Begich

His paternal grandparents were Croatian; his paternal grandfather, John Begich, immigrated to the United States from Croatia (then part of the empire of Austria-Hungary) in 1911.

His mother had Polish, Bohemian (Czech), Dutch, and English ancestry.

He attended Steller Secondary School in Anchorage.

As an adolescent, he opened an 18-and-under club called "The Motherlode."

At the age of 18, he had obtained a business license to sell jewelry and was helping his mother manage a number of real estate properties.

Because of his business opportunities, he decided not to go to college.

Mark Peter Begich (born March 30, 1962) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Alaska from 2009 to 2015.

His father disappeared in October 1972 during a small plane flight from Anchorage to Juneau, Alaska with then-U.S. House Majority Leader Hale Boggs, but was reelected the next month, while missing, before both were declared legally dead.

The fourth of six children, he has two sisters and three brothers.

His mother twice ran to fill her late husband's Congressional seat in the 1980s, losing to longtime Representative Don Young both times.

At the age of 19, Begich started working in the Anchorage city health department and later worked as a driver for then-Anchorage Mayor Tony Knowles.

During the 1988 legislative session, Begich worked as a legislative aide for State Representative Dave Donley.

Begich was elected to the Anchorage Assembly in 1988, at age 26, and served until 1998, including three years as chairman and two as vice chairman.

Begich served for a number of years on the Alaska Commission on Postsecondary Education, including as its chair.

Begich ran two unsuccessful campaigns for Mayor of Anchorage in 1994 and 2000 before being elected in 2003.

Begich ran unsuccessfully for mayor in 1994 against Rick Mystrom, and in 2000 against then-Assemblyman George Wuerch.

He eventually served as chairman for three years, before leaving the Assembly in 1998.

In 2001, Governor Tony Knowles appointed Begich to the University of Alaska Board of Regents, but the legislature did not confirm the appointment.

A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as mayor of Anchorage from 2003 to 2009.

Born in Anchorage, Alaska, he is the first Alaska senator to be born in the State of Alaska.

Begich is the son of former U.S. Representative Nick Begich Sr. He was elected to the Anchorage Assembly at the age of 26.

In the 2003 mayoral race he narrowly defeated both Mystrom and Wuerch, earning only 11 votes over the number needed to win without a runoff, in accordance with a simultaneously approved law decreasing the threshold needed to avoid such a runoff election from 50 to 45 percent.

He was subsequently reelected in 2006.

He was re-elected in April 2006, winning against local advertising and radio personality Jack Frost.

Although the office is officially nonpartisan, Begich was the first Democrat to be elected Mayor of the Municipality of Anchorage since Tony Knowles.

Begich was a member of the pro-gun-control group Mayors Against Illegal Guns.

Begich left the group in 2007.

In the 2008 Senate election, Begich narrowly defeated incumbent Ted Stevens, at the time the longest-serving Republican member of the U.S. Senate.

On February 27, 2008, Begich announced that he was forming an exploratory committee to run for the United States Senate.

After winning the Democratic nomination, he went on to face Republican incumbent Ted Stevens in the general election.

Begich was ahead in polls prior to the election.

During the campaign, Stevens faced a multiple count indictment on ethics and corruption charges.

On October 27, 2008, eight days before the general election, Stevens was found guilty by a Washington D.C. federal jury on seven felony counts.

Stevens's conviction was later set aside due to prosecutorial misconduct.

In the 2014 Senate election, Begich was narrowly defeated in his bid for reelection by former Alaska Attorney General Dan Sullivan.

Following completion of his term in the U.S. Senate, Begich started Anchorage-based consulting firm Northern Compass Group.

On June 1, 2018, Begich announced his candidacy for the Democratic nomination for Governor of Alaska in the 2018 election, facing off against Republican nominee and former state senator Mike Dunleavy.

He lost the gubernatorial election by a margin of seven percent.

Begich was born and raised in Anchorage, Alaska.

He is the son of Margaret Jean "Pegge" (née Jendro) and former U.S. Representative Nick Begich.