Biography:

McCaul grew up in Dallas, attended Trinity University in San Antonio, earning a bachelors degree in business and political science in 1984. During the summers, he worked construction-type jobs, tying steel rebar for building foundations.

"It was hard work," he recalled. "I thought it built character and it certainly motivated me to stay in college."

He enrolled in law school at St. Marys University, also in San Antonio, graduatiing in 1987. He joined the Texas attorney generals office as a member of the honors program, then applied in 1990 with the Justice Department, working there until 1999.

He rose to chief of the terrorism and national security section for the Western District of Texas.

He returned to the Texas attorney generals office, hired by then-Attorney General John Cornyn as deputy. He served on the Bush-Cheney transition team in 2000, the transition team of Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott in 2002, and has been a member of Gov. Rick Perrys anti-crime commission.

In 2002, he spent a summer in the senior executive fellows program at Harvard.McCaul has been statewide project director for Texas Exile, a gun violence reduction initiative that involves the cooperation of the U.S. Attorneys and District Attorneys across Texas. He also was instrumental in the formation of the Texas Internet Bureau to combat cybercrime and online fraud.

As a federal prosecutor, McCaul fought public corruption and investigated the campaign finance scandal involving the People's Republic of China. He was the lead prosecutor in the federal case against Johnny Chung, a Taiwan-born businessman sentenced to probation and 3,000 hours of community service as part of a plea bargain for making nearly $30,000 in illegal contributions to Democrats, including $20,000 to the Clinton-Gore re-election campaign.

Chung donated nearly $400,000 to Democratic candidates and causes between 1994 and 1996, but the money was returned after questions arose about its legality. Chung admitted to using "straw donors" to funnel money to the Clinton-Gore campaign and then reimbursing them.

McCaul met his wife, Linda, in Washington while she was working as an oceanographer, tracking Soviet submarines.

Past Campaigns:

Mike McCaul and Houston-area mortgage banker Ben Streusand emerged from a field of eight Republicans in the March primary to qualify for a runoff. Streusand had 28 percent and McCaul 24 percent in their first-ever run for office.

In what became one of the most expensive congressional races in the nation, the pair combined to spend some $5 million for the seat in the 10th District, which was reconfigured in 2003 by the GOP-controlled Texas Legislature to ensure a Republican winner. No Democrat ran in the primary.

In the April 2003 runoff, McCaul won easily with 63 percent of the vote.

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