Michele Bachmann is a Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives, representing Minnesota’s 6th Congressional District since 2007. She was one of the first Republicans to declare that she was a candidate for the Republican nomination for president.

Born in Waterloo, Iowa, she campaigned as a former Iowan and spent a huge amount of time in the state. Bachmann is a supporter of the tea party movement and a founder of the House Tea Party Caucus. She’s the only woman running in 2012 and a very conservative, Christian, faith-based contender.

Bachmann is a powerful speaker and early on showed enough strength in Iowa to win the Ames GOP summer straw poll. Her sometimes startling and inaccurate comments on issues and what some consider too much makeup, which makes her eyes stand out, have been noted. She went from first to among the lowest scoring contenders at 8 percent in a recent Iowa poll.