Markwayne Mullin

He is also the second Cherokee Nation citizen elected to the Senate; the first, Robert Latham Owen, retired in 1925.

Markwayne Mullin (born July 26, 1977) is an American businessman and politician who has served as the junior United States senator from Oklahoma since 2023.

A member of the Republican Party, he was elected in a special election in 2022 to serve the remainder of Jim Inhofe's term.

Mullin was born on July 26, 1977, in Tulsa, Oklahoma, the youngest of the seven children of Jim Martin Mullin and Brenda Gayle Morris Mullin, of Westville, Oklahoma.

His first name is a tribute to two of his paternal uncles, Mark and Wayne; his mother put both names on his birth certificate, intending to later shorten his name to one of the two, but ultimately never did.

He graduated from Stilwell High School in Stilwell, Oklahoma.

He attended Missouri Valley College in 1996, but did not graduate.

In 1997, at age 20, Mullin took over his father's business, Mullin Plumbing, when his father fell ill.

Mullin was the first Republican to represent the district since Tom Coburn in 2001.

Mullin is the first Native American U.S. senator since Ben Nighthorse Campbell retired in 2005.

In 2010, Mullin received an associate's degree in construction technology from Oklahoma State University Institute of Technology.

He is the only currently serving senator without at least a bachelor's degree.

In June 2011, incumbent U.S. Representative Dan Boren announced that he would retire at the end of 2012 from his 2nd Congressional District seat.

In September 2011, Mullin declared his candidacy for the seat.

He branded himself as an outsider; his campaign slogan was "A rancher. A businessman. Not a politician!"

In the six-candidate Republican primary, Mullin finished first with 42% of the vote; state representative George Faught ranked second with 23% of the vote.

As a majority is required to win a congressional nomination in Oklahoma, a runoff was held; Mullin defeated Faught, 57%–43%.

The district had historically been a "Yellow Dog" Democratic constituency, but had steadily trended Republican as Tulsa's suburbs spilled into its northern portion.

For this reason, Mullin was thought to have a good chance of winning the election.

He defeated the Democratic nominee, former district attorney Rob Wallace, 57%–38%.

At the time he was first elected to Congress in 2012, Mullin hosted House Talk, a home improvement radio program syndicated across Oklahoma, on Tulsa station KFAQ.

When elected to Congress, Mullin owned Mullin Properties, Mullin Farms, and Mullin Services, in addition to Mullin Plumbing.

In 2012, he reported between $200,000 and $2 million in income from two family companies, and another $15,000 to $50,000 from shares he held in a bank.

At the end of 2021, Mullin's reported assets increased to a range of $31.6 million to $75.6 million, compared to a range of $7.3 million to $29.9 million at the end of 2020.

The increase was from the sale of his plumbing-related companies to HomeTown Services, a multi-state residential heating, air conditioning, plumbing and electrical company.

Mullin said that the sale happened in early 2021, while Mullin was serving in the House of Representatives.

When he first ran for Congress in 2012, Mullin promised to serve only three terms (six years), but in July 2017 he released a video announcing that he would run for a fourth term in 2018, saying he was ill-advised when he made the promise to only serve three terms.

After he reneged on this promise, former U.S. senator Tom Coburn said he would work to oust Mullin from office.

Mullin won a four-way Republican primary with 54% of the vote, and was reelected in November with 65% of the vote.

Before being elected to the Senate, Mullin served as the U.S. representative for OK's 2nd congressional district from 2013 to 2023.

In 2014, Mullin was reelected with 70% of the vote, defeating Democrat Earl Everett, who got 24.6% of the vote.

In the June 2016 Republican primary, Mullin defeated Jarrin Jackson by 27 percentage points.

In the November general election, he defeated Democrat Joshua Harris-Till by 47 percentage points.

In April 2017, Mullin drew criticism when he was recorded during a town hall meeting telling his constituents that it was "bullcrap" that taxpayers pay his salary.

He said, "I pay for myself. I paid enough taxes before I got here and continue to through my company to pay my own salary. This is a service. No one here pays me to go."

As of 2022, Mullin still collects the U.S. Congress base salary of $174,000.

In a 2018 report, the U.S. House Ethics Committee said that "Mullin made a good faith effort to seek the Committee's informal guidance on numerous issues with respect to his family business."

But the committee noted that Congressional ethics rules state that members of Congress should not endorse products or services, particularly if they personally benefit financially from the endorsement.

Along with all other Senate and House Republicans, Mullin voted against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021.

In 2020, Mullin won the Republican primary with 79.9% of the vote, and was reelected in November with 75% of the vote.