40-year-old Democrat Gabrielle Giffords is the House representative for Arizona.

She sworn in to a third term just this week, one of the few Democrats in swing districts to survive a Republican sweep in the November elections.

She has been mentioned as a possible Senate candidate in 2012 and a gubernatorial one in 2014.

Giffords has focused on immigration reform, military issues, stem cell research and alternative energy. She was expected to be a leading voice on immigration in the new Congress.

She's drawn the ire of conservatives in the last year over her support of Obama's health care reform bill. She's said she faced a deluge of threats ever since. Her Tucson office was vandalized a few hours after the House voted to approve the health care law in March.

Giffords is married to a NASA astronaut, Mark Kelly. She's an avid motorcycle rider, and has said that one of her dreams is to ride a bike all the way to Argentina.