Braun, Mike, 1954-
Michael K. Braun (/ˈbrɔːn/; born March 24, 1954) is an American businessman and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Indiana. Previously, he represented the 63rd district in the Indiana House of Representatives from 2014 to 2017. A member of the Republican Party, Braun was elected to the United States Senate in 2018, defeating Democratic incumbent Joe Donnelly.
Braun opposes the Affordable Care Act, same-sex marriage, abortion, and a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants. He describes himself as a "conservationist" who has called on the Republican Party to take climate change more seriously, but is ranked very poorly by environmental groups, and supported U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accords. He supported President Donald Trump's trade and tariff policies despite having previously been a free trade advocate, and was a staunch ally of Trump throughout his presidency. Braun voted to acquit Trump in the impeachment trial related to the Trump-Ukraine scandal. After Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election and Trump refused to concede, making false claims of fraud, Braun defended Trump's efforts to overturn the election results.
Braun was born in Jasper, Indiana, on March 24, 1954. He graduated from Jasper High School. Braun was a three-sport star athlete; he married his high school sweetheart, Maureen, who was a cheerleader. He attended the all-male Wabash College, where he was a member of Phi Delta Theta fraternity and graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics, and Harvard Business School, where he earned an MBA.
After graduating from Harvard, Braun moved back to Indiana and joined his father’s business manufacturing truck bodies for farmers. When the economy of the mid-1980s hit farmers hard and his father's business nearly went under, Braun steered the business in the more lucrative direction of selling truck accessories. The business subsequently grew from 15 employees to more than 300. In 1986 Braun and Daryl Rauscher acquired Meyer Body Inc., a manufacturer of truck bodies and distributor of truck parts and equipment. In 1995 Braun fully acquired the company. Meyer Body was renamed Meyer Distributing in 1999. Braun is its president and CEO. In 2018 Braun's personal finance disclosure listed assets worth between $35 million and $96 million.
