Biography:

Kit Bond was born into a prosperous, six-generation Missouri family whose fortune came from brick making in Mexico, Mo. After graduating from Princeton and University of Virginia Law School, where he was first in his class, he clerked for one of the South's leading civil rights advocates, federal Judge Elbert Tuttle.

Bond moved home, ran for Congress and lost in 1968, then entered government as assistant state attorney general under the wing of then-attorney general John C. Danforth, the Republican mentor with whom he would later serve in the U.S. Senate.

He was elected state auditor in 1970 and governor in 1972 at age 33. In his first term, Bond oversaw creation of an unprecedented open meetings law and reorganized state government.

He ran for re-election but, surprisingly, lost to Democrat Joe Teasdale in 1976. Bond rallied for a 1980 comeback, then went on to capture three terms in the U.S. Senate.

Bond and his first wife, Carolyn, have a son named Sam. The couple divorced in 1995. Bond married his second wife, the former Linda Pell, in 2002.

Past Campaigns:

Kit Bond went to the U.S. Senate in 1986, winning with 53 percent to 47 percent for Democratic Lt. Gov. Harriett Woods.

In 1992, Bond defeated Geri Rothman-Serot, a member of the St. Louis City Council, 52 percent to 45 percent. He was the only Republican to win statewide election that year.

He won re-election in 1998, defeating Democratic Attorney General Jay Nixon, 53 percent to 44 percent.

Bond won races for state auditor in 1970 and governor of Missouri in 1972 and 1980.

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