Senate candidate Bert Mizusawa is pitching himself to Virginia voters as a battle-tested alternative to Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA). The Republican is arguing that his four decades in uniform and on the front lines of national security better fit the state’s deep military roots.
Mizusawa won the Republican nomination in August and will face Warner in November. Warner, who has refused to debate, is seeking a fourth term in the Senate and previously served as Virginia’s governor.
The retired major general is trying to turn his underdog status into an asset, casting the race as a choice between a wealthy, longtime incumbent and a career serviceman who says he understands the pressures facing ordinary Virginians.
“Mark Warner is a very, very wealthy man. I am the poor guy in this race.” Mizusawa told the Washington Examiner. “One of my questions to our fellow Virginians is: Who do you think can best identify with your interests — the person who doesn’t have to worry about money, or the person who does?”
Mizusawa is jumping into this race because he felt he couldn’t sit on the sidelines while the country and Virginia drifted away from what he sees as core American principles. His campaign is focusing on “common sense solutions” and getting back to the “fundamental basics” — strong borders, enforcing laws, and fiscal responsibility.
“We decided it was easier to get in and fight than to sit at home and watch what was going on in our nation and our commonwealth,” Mizusawa said. “We would not have entered a fight unless we thought we could win it.”
Here’s what you need to know about the Republican hopeful:
Age
Bert Mizusawa, 69, was born on January 31, 1957.
Hometown
Mizusawa was born in Hawaii but left when he was six months old and considers his hometown Hampton, Virginia.
“I was a military brat.” Mizusawa said to the Washington Examiner. “I grew up in an Air Force family; my father was a military professional initially in the Army and then the Air Force.”
He has been living in McLean, Virginia, since 1999.
Education
Mizusawa went to four different high schools due to the “military brat” lifestyle. His bachelor’s degree is from West Point, he received a law degree from Harvard Law School, a master’s in public policy from the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard, and a master’s in strategic studies from the Army War College. Mizusawa was also a MacArthur Fellow in International Security for two years at Harvard.
Family life and religion
Mizusawa and his wife, Amy, share seven children and four grandchildren.
As the son of immigrants, his family history has had a major impact on his life of service and values.
“My mother and father were both from a very large family, but immediately his older brother was killed in the Korean War fighting for the Second Infantry Division,” Mizusawa said, “They would not send my father to Korea because they didn’t want two brothers killed in the same war.”
His father was reassigned to postwar Europe to be part of the occupation forces.
“While he was stationed there, he was in Austria and France, and then met my mother, who was from the Netherlands, and they ended up getting married,” Mizusawa said. “I’m one of six children that they’ve had, and I was raised all over the place.”
That twist of fate set the stage for a childhood unfolding across three continents. Mizusawa has lived in homes throughout the Netherlands, Oklahoma, Ohio, Japan, Virginia, and Germany before returning to Virginia.
“Then I went off to West Point, and I started my own travels,” Mizusawa said.
He is a Protestant.
Occupations
Mizusawa’s career has been defined by national security and public service. A retired Major General with 41 years in uniform and four combat tours, he grew up in a military family and went on to build his own record of service across the Army and as a civilian leader with senior roles in both the legislative and executive branches of government.
“I served as a professional staff member in the United States Senate back in the 90s,” Mizusawa said. “Essentially, the Senate Armed Services Committee is like the board of directors for the Pentagon, so I had oversight of major swaths of the earth, what we call the combat commands areas of responsibility.”
During his time, he was overseeing key regions including Latin America, the Asia-Pacific, and Europe during the Balkan conflicts.
His campaign biography says he commanded a Combined Joint Interagency Task Force in Afghanistan, coordinating with U.S. agencies, coalition partners, and international organizations on issues including corruption, narcotics trafficking, and terrorist financing. He later served as a senior adviser to the director of the CIA.
Utilizing his time at Harvard Law, he founded a law practice focused on complex legal and regulatory matters.
“After an entire career in the military conducting warfare, I come home, and I see how important lawfare is,” Mizusawa said.
Major policy positions
A Harvard-trained attorney, he believes his candidacy is an extension of his service, and his background makes him strong on issues of national security and public safety.
“Virginia happens to be the state with the highest per capita amount of defense spending as a recipient,” Mizusawa said. “I would have a strong voice on how our defense dollars are spent.”
He has also made border security and immigration enforcement central to his campaign. Mizusawa argues federal, state, and local governments should cooperate in enforcing immigration laws and has criticized efforts to limit cooperation between local authorities and federal immigration officials.
His campaign lists six major platforms: Fiscal responsibility, affordability, military and veterans’ issues, and government corruption, lowering healthcare costs, and creating affordable energy.
Hobbies
“I’m a DIY guy,” Mizusawa said. “I probably spend too much time at Home Depot wandering the aisles.”
He enjoys constantly trying to improve things in his home and mowing his lawn.
“That’s a little bit of therapy for me,” Mizusawa said.
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But one thing he would like to do more of is working out and getting back into shape.
“You know, I’m not a spring chicken anymore,” Mizusawa said. “But I pride myself having been a military guy and a paratrooper of setting an example for our younger generations, be physically functional for as long as possible.”