Mark Alford
Mark Alford, a Republican former television news anchor who has represented Missouri's 4th congressional district since 2023, seeks reelection in 2026 against Democrat Jordan Herrera.
2026 Races & Market Forecast
Live TruthIndex™ and prediction market consensus for races contested by Mark Alford.
- Born
- October 4, 1963
- Birthplace
- Baytown, Texas
- Education
- Sterling High School
University of Texas at Austin
Biography & Campaign Analysis
Background
Mark Alford, born Mark Allen Alford Sr. on October 4, 1963, in Baytown, Texas, attended Sterling High School. He went on to study government at the University of Texas at Austin, leaving the university before completing a degree. Alford and his wife, Leslie, have three children and live in Lake Winnebago, a suburb of Kansas City, where he is a member of Evangel Church.
Career
Alford spent his early career in television news, working as a reporter with KXAN-TV in Austin, KWTX-TV in Waco and WPTV-TV in West Palm Beach, and as an anchor for KDFW-TV in Dallas. From 1995 to 1998 he was a reporter and weekend anchor at KPRC-TV in Houston. In 1998 he moved to WDAF-TV in Kansas City as an anchor for Fox 4 News, where he stayed for 23 years before announcing his resignation on October 8, 2021.
On October 27, 2021, Alford announced his candidacy as a Republican for Missouri's 4th congressional district. He won the Republican nomination in the August 2, 2022, primary and the general election that November, taking office in 2023, and he was reelected in 2024 with 71.1% of the vote.
In the 119th Congress he serves on the Committee on Appropriations, where he is vice chair of the Subcommittee on Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies, and on the Committee on Small Business, where he chairs the Subcommittee on Oversight, Investigations, and Regulations.
2026 race
Mark Alford is running for a third term in a 4th district whose boundaries changed between the primary and the general election.
The primary map covered a sliver of downtown Kansas City, southern Jackson County suburbs such as Lee's Summit and Grandview, and rural counties toward Springfield and the Lake of the Ozarks, while the general-election district is based in rural west-central Missouri, taking in Columbia, Sedalia, Warrensburg and Lebanon.
Alford won the Republican primary with 77.7% of the vote over Heather Shelton and Scott Vera. In the general election on November 3, 2026, he faces Democrat Jordan Herrera, an attorney, and Libertarian Thomas Holbrook.