Frank Daniel Mongiardo (born July 4, 1960) is an American physician and politician from the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Mongiardo is a Democrat and was the 54th lieutenant governor of Kentucky from 2007 until 2011. He was a member of the Kentucky State Senate from 2001 to 2007. He also ran for the U.S. Senate in 2004, narrowly losing in the general election to Jim Bunning and again in 2010, losing in the primary election to Jack Conway. Personal life and career Mongiardo was born to Italian immigrants in Hazard, Kentucky. His father Jimmy owned a whiskey store and coin laundry for many years before retiring and his mother Katherine died in 1988 of colon cancer. Mongiardo attended Transylvania University and received his medical degree at the University of Kentucky College of Medicine in 1986. From 1986 to 2000, Mongiardo worked as an ear, nose and throat surgeon, performing his residency in Lexington. Mongiardo helped open a free health clinic and became chief of staff at the Hazard Appalachian Hospital. He entered politics in 2000 and was elected to the state senate, after defeating incumbent Glenn Freeman in an expensive and bitter Democratic primary with 49.1 percent of the vote and then winning the general election with 70 percent of the vote. Mongiardo was reelected to a redrawn district in 2002 that covers Bell, Harlan, Leslie and Perry counties with 65.6 percent of the vote. In this campaign Mongiardo argued his opponent Johnnie L. Turner had used images of Mohamed Atta in a television advertisement to compare Atta to him. In the Kentucky Senate Mongiardo worked to bring water projects to his district, pressed for legislation to establish an electronic medical network, and voted against a constitutional amendment that would allow the legislature to limit the payment of punitive damages in medical malpractice cases. Mongiardo continued his private practice and married Allison Patrick in Covington, Kentucky in 2008. Their first child, Kathryn, was born on December 22, 2009, their second child, Cannon, was born on September 28, 2011 and third child, Barron, was born August 30, 2014. 2004 U.S. Senate race Mongiardo ran in the 2004 U.S. Senate election to unseat incumbent first-term Senator Jim Bunning, a former Major League Baseball player. He won the primary election with 64.9 percent of the vote and made health care his top campaign priority. Although early polls showed Mongiardo at a significant disadvantage against