Peter Gosselin Fitzgerald (born October 20, 1960) is a retired American lawyer and politician who served as a United States Senator from Illinois. A member of the Republican Party, he served from 1999 to 2005. Fitzgerald defeated Democratic incumbent Carol Moseley Braun in 1998, becoming the first Republican to win a U.S. Senate race in Illinois since Charles Percy twenty years earlier. He had previously served in the Illinois State Senate from 1993 to 1998. Known as a maverick for his willingness to break party lines, Fitzgerald retired from the Senate in 2005 and was succeeded by Barack Obama. After retiring from politics, he and his wife moved to McLean, Virginia. The son of millionaire banking magnate Gerald Francis Fitzgerald, Peter founded Chain Bridge Bank in 2007. Early life Born in Elgin, Illinois, one of five children of Gerald Francis and Marjorie (née Gosselin) Fitzgerald, Fitzgerald spent most of his life in Inverness, a northwestern suburb of Chicago. He graduated from Portsmouth Abbey School, a Catholic boarding school in 1978, and from Dartmouth College in 1982. He completed his post-graduate studies as a Rotary Scholar at Aristotelian University in Greece, and earned his J.D. degree from the University of Michigan in 1986. His family has been continuously involved in commercial banking since the mid-1940s. His father built Suburban Bancorp, a chain of suburban banks, by aggressively founding and buying banks around the Chicago suburbs, which he sold in 1994 to a subsidiary of the Bank of Montreal for $246 million. Fitzgerald ran for the Illinois House of Representatives in 1988, but lost the Republican primary to James M. Kirkland by 1.15%. Political career State Senate Fitzgerald was first elected to the state Senate in 1992. He was a member of a group of conservative state senators elected in 1992. They often challenged the leadership of the Illinois Republican Party and were dubbed the "Fab Five." The group also included Steve Rauschenberger, Dave Syverson, Patrick O'Malley and Chris Lauzen. 1994 congressional bid Fitzgerald challenged long-time incumbent Republican congressman Phil Crane in the 1994 Republican primary for the 8th Illinois congressional district. In a multi-candidate field, Fitzgerald lost to Crane 40% to 33%. 1998 senatorial campaign Fitzgerald announced his intention to challenge one-term Democratic incumbent U.S. Senator Carol Moseley Braun in the 1998 election. He faced Illinois Comptroller Loleta Didrickson in the Republican primary. Didrickson had the support of the state Republican