Joseph Ambrose "Joe" Sestak, Jr. (born December 12, 1951) is a former American politician and Navy admiral. A Democrat, he served as a member of the U.S. House of Representatives for two terms, from Pennsylvania's 7th congressional district from 2007 to 2011. He was the highest-ranking military official ever elected to the U.S. Congress. Sestak defeated 30-year incumbent Arlen Specter in the 2010 Pennsylvania Democratic Senate primary. He was defeated in the general election by former U.S Representative Pat Toomey.

Sestak was a member of the United States Navy for over 30 years, before retiring as a Vice admiral (three stars). Late in his naval career, Sestak served as the Director for Defense on the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton. During his naval career, he held a series of operational commands, including commanding the USS George Washington carrier strike group during combat operations in the Persian Gulf and Indian Ocean in 2002. Following the September 11 attacks, he served as the first director of "Deep Blue" (code name), the Navy's top secret counter-terrorism unit.

Patrick Joseph "Pat" Toomey, Sr. (born November 17, 1961) is an American businessman and politician. He is currently the junior United States Senator for Pennsylvania, and a member of the Republican Party. Previously, Toomey served as a United States Representative for three terms, but he did not seek a fourth in compliance with a pledge he had made while running for office in 1998. He also served as president of the Club for Growth.

Toomey attended school at La Salle Academy in Providence, Rhode Island before earning an A.B. in government from Harvard College. He was employed first by Chemical Bank and subsequently Morgan, Grenfell & Co. beginning in 1984 and 1986, respectively, until resigning from the latter in 1991.

Prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate, Toomey served as the U.S. Representative for Pennsylvania's 15th congressional district from 1999 to 2005. He narrowly lost the Republican primary for United States Senate in 2004. From 2005 to 2009, he served as president of the Club for Growth. After becoming the Republican nominee for the 2010 U.S. Senate election in Pennsylvania, Toomey was elected to the seat on November 2, 2010, defeating his Democratic opponent, retired Admiral and Congressman Joe Sestak.

Anthony David Weiner (pronounced /ˈwiːnər/; born September 4, 1964) is a former U.S. Representative who served New York's 9th congressional district from January 1999 until June 2011. A Democrat, Weiner held the seat previously occupied by Democrat Charles Schumer and won seven terms, never receiving less than 59 percent of the vote. He was an unsuccessful candidate for mayor of New York City in the 2005 election, and had begun to amass a campaign fund to run again for mayor in 2013.

Previously, Weiner was a New York City councilman from 1992 to 1998, and a congressional aide to then-U.S. Representative Schumer from 1985 to 1991. A New York City native, he attended the public schools and graduated from the State University of New York at Plattsburgh in 1985 with a bachelor of arts degree in political science.

Weiner resigned from Congress due to a sexting scandal, effective June 21, 2011. A special election was held on September 13, 2011, to fill the remainder of his term.

Weiner was born in Brooklyn, New York, one of three sons of Mort Weiner, a lawyer, and his wife Fran, a public high school mathematics teacher. The family lived for a time in the Park Slope neighborhood of Brooklyn. Weiner described his ethnic and religious background in 2011: "We weren't a very religious household," he said, "but we had a very strong sense of our Judaism." His older brother, Seth, was killed at age 39 in a hit-and-run vehicle-pedestrian accident in May 2000. His younger brother, Jason, is a chef and co-owner of several New York restaurants.

Alan Mark Grayson (born March 13, 1958) is a former U.S. Representative for Florida's 8th congressional district, serving from 2009 until 2011. He is a member of the Democratic Party. The district Grayson represented lies in central Florida and includes portions of Orange Lake, Marion, and Osceola Counties. Most of Orlando is in the district, including Walt Disney World. Grayson was defeated for re-election in 2010 by Republican Daniel Webster.

Grayson was born in the Bronx, New York City, New York, United States, to a Jewish family, the son of Dorothy Ann (née Sabin) and Daniel Franklin Grayson. He graduated from Bronx High School of Science in 1975 and worked his way through Harvard College as a janitor and nightwatchman, graduating in 1978 in the top two percent of his class, summa cum laude and Phi Beta Kappa with an A.B. in economics. After working two years as an economist, he returned to Harvard for graduate studies. In 1983, he earned a J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School and a Masters of Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government. Additionally, he completed the course work and passed the general exams for a PhD in government.

Scott Philip Brown (born September 12, 1959) is an American politician and the junior United States Senator from Massachusetts. Brown previously served as a member of the Massachusetts General Court, first in the State House of Representatives (1998–2004) and then in the State Senate (2004–2010).

Brown is a member of the Republican Party, and faced the Democratic candidate, Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley, in the 2010 special election to succeed U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy for the remainder of the term ending January 3, 2013. While initially trailing Coakley in polling by a large margin, Brown won the election and in January 2010 became the first Republican elected to the U.S. Senate from Massachusetts since Edward Brooke in 1972.

Prior to entering the state legislature, he had experience as a town selectman and assessor. He is a practicing attorney, concentrating in real estate law and serving as defense counsel in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the Massachusetts Army National Guard. Brown is a graduate of Wakefield High School (1977), Tufts University (1981), and Boston College Law School (1985).