William Thad Cochran (born December 7, 1937) is the senior United States Senator from Mississippi and a member of the Republican Party. First elected to the Senate in 1978, he is the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Appropriations and was its chairman from 2005 to 2007.

Cochran was born in Pontotoc, Mississippi, the son of Emma Grace (née Berry) and William Holmes Cochran, a teacher and school principal, respectively. His family settled in Hinds County, Mississippi, home of the state capital, Jackson, in 1946 after a few moves around the northern part of the state. Cochran still lives in Jackson today. Cochran earned Eagle Scout as a youth and was awarded the Distinguished Eagle Scout Award as an adult. He graduated valedictorian from Byram High School near Jackson and received a B.A. degree from the University of Mississippi with a major in psychology and a minor in political science in 1959. There he joined the Pi Kappa Alpha Fraternity and was on the cheerleading squad (fellow senator Trent Lott was also an Ole Miss cheerleader). After a time in the United States Navy (1959–1961), he attended the University of Mississippi School of Law, was elected to the Phi Kappa Phi honor society and graduated in 1965. He then practiced law for seven years. He married Rose Clayton on June 6, 1964; the couple has two children, Clayton and Kate.

Barack Hussein Obama II (ⁱ/bəˈrɑːk huːˈseɪn oʊˈbɑːmə/; born August 4, 1961) is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. In January 2005, Obama was sworn in as a U.S. Senator in the state of Illinois. He would hold this office until November 2008, when he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.

Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, Obama is a graduate of Columbia University and Harvard Law School, where he was the president of the Harvard Law Review. He was a community organizer in Chicago before earning his law degree. He worked as a civil rights attorney in Chicago and taught constitutional law at the University of Chicago Law School from 1992 to 2004. He served three terms representing the 13th District in the Illinois Senate from 1997 to 2004.

Following an unsuccessful bid against the Democratic incumbent for a seat in the United States House of Representatives in 2000, Obama ran for the United States Senate in 2004. Several events brought him to national attention during the campaign, including his victory in the March 2004 Illinois Democratic primary for the Senate election and his keynote address at the Democratic National Convention in July 2004. He won election to the U.S. Senate in Illinois in November 2004. His presidential campaign began in February 2007, and after a close campaign in the 2008 Democratic Party presidential primaries against Hillary Rodham Clinton, he won his party's nomination. In the 2008 presidential election, he defeated Republican nominee John McCain, and was inaugurated as president on January 20, 2009. Nine months later, Obama was named the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize laureate. In April 2011, he announced that he would be running for re-election in 2012.

Harry Mason Reid (born December 2, 1939) is the senior United States Senator from Nevada, serving since 1987. A member of the Democratic Party, he has been the Senate Majority Leader since January 2007, having previously served as Minority Leader and Minority and Majority Whip.

Previously, Reid was a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Nevada's 1st congressional district, and served in Nevada local and state government as city attorney of Henderson, a state legislator, the 25th Lieutenant Governor, and chairman of the Nevada Gaming Commission.

As Senate Majority Leader and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Harry Reid has achieved a more senior elected position in the United States government than any Mormon in history.

Reid was born in Searchlight, Nevada, the third of the four sons of Inez Orena (née Jaynes), a laundress, and Harry Vincent Reid, a miner. His paternal grandmother was an English immigrant from Darlston, Staffordshire. Reid's boyhood home had no indoor toilet, hot water or telephone. Searchlight had no high school, so Reid boarded with relatives 40 miles away in Henderson, Nevada to attend Basic High School where he played football, and was an amateur boxer. While at Basic High he met future Nevada governor Mike O'Callaghan, who was a teacher there. Reid attended Southern Utah University and graduated from Utah State University where he double majored in political science and history. Reid also minored in economics from the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business. He then went to George Washington University Law School earning a J.D. while working for the United States Capitol Police.

Christopher McDaniel (born June 28, 1972 in Laurel, Mississippi), is an attorney, conservative commentator and a Republican politician in the Mississippi Senate who has represented the 42nd District, which encompasses part of South Mississippi, since 2008. McDaniel resides with his family in Ellisville, Mississippi. He is the grandson of early country singer Luke McDaniel.

Senator McDaniel was born on June 28, 1972 in Laurel, Mississippi. He graduated with honors from Jones County Junior College and received his B.S. with honors from William Carey University. After graduating from William Carey in 1994, McDaniel entered the University of Mississippi School of Law, graduating cum laude in 1997 with a Juris Doctor degree.

In 1997, McDaniel entered a two year federal clerkship with United States District Court Judge Charles W. Pickering, Sr. After leaving his position as a law clerk with Judge Pickering, McDaniel joined the law firm of Hortman Harlow Bassi Robinson & McDaniel, becoming a partner in 2003. His areas of concentration include Litigation, Insurance Defense, Corporate Law, Products Liability, Commercial Litigation, Consumer Products Litigation, Mass Tort Litigation, Complex Multi-Party Litigation, Legislation, Constitutional Law & Civil Rights. He is licensed to practice law in Mississippi and Texas.