Michael Bennet is seeking another six-year term in the U.S. Senate. The Denver Democrat is campaigning on his record, emphasizing his bipartisan spirit amid the gridlock in Washington. (.)
Here are five things to know about Bennet:
Michael Bennet was born in India
Bennetap father, Douglas Bennet, served as an aide to the U.S. ambassador to India in November 1964 .
Bennetap father worked in the Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton administrations, and later served as president of National Public Radio and president of private Wesleyan University in Connecticut, where Michael Bennet attended. Bennet’s grandfather had served as an economic adviser to Franklin Roosevelt.
His grandparents are Holocaust survivors
Bennetap grandparents , smuggling his mother as a baby out of the country before arriving in New York in 1950. His grandmother hid with nuns at a convent. His grandfather managed to escape capture, too.
His arrival in Washington was heralded as the because his mother was Jewish, though Bennet is a Christian. His family’s ancestry to support the Iran nuclear deal, despite opposition from Israel.
2016 is only his second election
Bennetap family history is steeped in politics, but he didn’t make his first bid for elected office until 2010 — when he won his current term.
in the private sector for billionaire businessman Philip Anschutz before becoming then-Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s chief of staff in 2003 and Denver Public Schools superintendent in 2005. Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter to the U.S. Senate in 2009 after Sen. Ken Salazar took the Interior secretary job in President Barack Obama’s administration.
Bennet managed to escape a Democratic primary and then by a mere 1.6 percent, 29,896 votes, against Republican Ken Buck. And now he’s seeking re-election, his second bid for public office.
He worked with Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland
Bennet worked as a low-level attorney in the Justice Department during President Bill Clinton’s administration with a mid-career attorney named Merrick Garland. Bennet “one of the most decent people I’ve ever met.” He adds: “We probably said hello on a daily basis.”
Now, Bennet says he will support Garland — but for months, he held back from an endorsement. “Even though I know him — and maybe because I know him — I wanted to reserve judgment until after the hearing was done,” he said earlier this fall.
His wife is an environmental lawyer
Bennet met Susan Daggett on a blind date; both graduated from Yale Law School. The couple . She is the reason they moved to Denver after she got a job at the Earthjustice Legal Defense Fund (formerly the Sierra Club Defense Fund). Daggett, an Arkansas native, is now of the Rocky Mountain Land Use Institute at the Sturm College of Law at the University of Denver.