- In full:
- Gary Charles Peters
Gary Peters
When was Gary Peters elected to the U.S. Senate?
What is Gary Peters known for in the Senate?
What significant personal story did Gary Peters share publicly?
What roles did Gary Peters have before joining the Senate?
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Gary Peters is an American politician who was elected as a Democrat to the U.S. Senate in 2014 and began representing Michigan in that body the following year. Recognized as being an effective and bipartisan member of the Senate, Peters announced in January 2025 that he would not seek a third term, thereby making the race to succeed him in the purple state of Michigan one of the most closely watched of the 2026 midterm season.
Early life
- Birth date: December 1, 1958
- Birthplace: Pontiac, Michigan, U.S.
- Education: Alma College, bachelor’s degree in political science, 1980; University of Detroit Mercy, MBA, 1984; Wayne State University, J.D., 1989; Michigan State University, master’s degree in philosophy, 2007; Wayne State University, master’s degree in political science, 2020.
- Best known for: Being a two-term Democratic senator from Michigan
- Family: He is married to Colleen Ochoa; the couple has three children, Gary, Jr., Madeleine, and Alana.
- Quotation: “I’ve always considered myself pro-choice and believe women should be able to make these decisions themselves, but when you live it in real life, you realize the significant impact it can have on a family.” —telling the story of his first wife’s emergency abortion.
Gary Peters’s father, Herb Peters, served during World War II, and while stationed in France, he met Madeleine Vignier, whom he would wed in 1946. The couple settled in Michigan, where Gary Peters and his two sisters were born. Herb Peters worked as a teacher, and Madeleine Peters was a nurse’s aide.
His parents instilled in him the importance of hard work, and from the age of 11, Gary Peters worked—as a paperboy, busing tables, and in retail—while going to school and becoming an Eagle Scout. He earned a bachelor’s degree in political science from Alma College in 1980, a master’s degree in business administration from the University of Detroit Mercy in 1984, a law degree from Wayne State University in 1989, and a master’s degree in philosophy from Michigan State University in 2007.
Business, military, and political life
Out of college, Peters went to work at a number of investment firms, including Merrill Lynch and PaineWebber, where he rose through the ranks from financial adviser to vice president through the 1980s and early 1990s.
Peters was a member of the Rochester Hills, Michigan, City Council from 1991 to 1993. He then joined the U.S. Naval Reserve (1993–2000) and saw active duty in the Persian Gulf. In 1994 he was elected to the Michigan state Senate, where he served from 1995 to 2002, a period interrupted by a return to military service (2001–05) after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Peters also served as Michigan’s lottery commissioner (2003–07), worked in finance, and taught at various universities.
In 2008 Peters ran for the U.S. House of Representatives and defeated a longtime Republican incumbent to win Michigan’s historically conservative 9th district. He took office the following year. Peters typically voted with his party, and he was a strong supporter of Pres. Barack Obama’s policies, particularly the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. In addition, he backed raising the minimum wage and immigration reform. Peters was reelected in 2010. After Michigan lost a congressional seat following the 2010 census, he ran in the traditionally Democratic 14th district and won in 2012. When Democratic Michigan Sen. Carl Levin announced that he would not seek reelection in 2014, Peters ran for his seat and won by a large margin. He entered the Senate the following year.
Work in the Senate
Peters quickly developed a reputation for being highly effective at working across the aisle to get legislation passed. During the 116th Congress (2019–21), Peters was ranked by the Center for Effective Lawmaking as the most effective senator. He managed to get 10 bills passed into law, despite the Democrats not holding the majority in the Senate during this period. He was noted for his ability to build coalitions and win Republican cosponsors for this legislation.
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In 2020 Peters became the first sitting senator to publicly share an experience with abortion. He recounted in an interview with Elle magazine how in the late 1980s, his first wife, Heidi, who was four months pregnant, was initially denied a medically necessary abortion when the fetus was determined not to be viable. Heidi Peters was granted an abortion at another hospital, but Gary Peters recounted that the experience “enacted an incredible emotional toll.” Peters went public with the story in the wake of U.S. Pres. Donald Trump’s nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the U.S. Supreme Court.
Peters was in the U.S. Capitol preparing for the certification of the 2020 presidential election on January 6, 2021. The next day, he called Trump a “clear and present danger” and called for invoking the 25th Amendment, saying: “He continues to put out conspiracy theories, and as a result of that he’s stoking people to engage in violent activities. That’s simply unacceptable behavior for a president of the United States, and it has to lead to the question that he’s simply unfit for this office.”
In January 2025 Peters made the surprise announcement that he would not seek a third term in the Senate, telling the Detroit News: “I always thought there would be a time that I would step aside and pass the reins for the next generation.”