Michele Bachmann 2016: 7 Highlights From Pre-Politics Life of Potential GOP Presidential Hopeful

As a 2012 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination and a potential 2016 GOP presidential hopeful, Michele Bachmann remains a political force to be considered.

Here are seven highlights from her life before her rise in politics.

1. Bachmann's family moved from Iowa to Minnesota when she was young, eventually settling in Anoka, where her parents divorced in July 1970. Within a month, David Amble remarried and moved to California, cutting ties with his four children, and leaving her mother to struggle to take care of her family alone, according to a site about 2012 Republican candidates.

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2. Michele Bachmann became a born-again Christian at the age of 16. In a 2006 speech in Minneapolis, she said: “I didn’t know I wasn’t a believer. But they knew I wasn’t a believer, and they started praying for me. And all of a sudden the Holy Spirit started knocking on my heart’s door and I could hear the Lord tug me and call me to Himself, and I responded on November 1 of 1972, and I knew that I knew that I knew that I had received Jesus Christ as my lord and savior and that my life would never be the same after I made that commitment, because I knew what darkness looked like.”

3. In 1976, Michele met her husband, Marcus Bachmann, at Winona State College, a medium-sized public school in southeastern Minnesota. Shortly after graduation, the two were married on his family’s dairy farm in Wisconsin. Michele Bachmann then took a year off before starting law school.

4. As a federal tax litigation attorney for the Internal Revenue Service, Bachmann worked on civil and criminal cases.

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5. Bachmann was dissatisfied with the Stillwater public school system, and helped establish a charter school. However, in 1999, she failed in her first bid for public office — a seat on the local school board.

6. Michele and her husband Marcus own a Christian counseling practice in Stillwater, with nearly 50 employees, according to Bloomberg.

7. Through the years, the Bachmann family cared for a number of foster children, reportedly 23; she had a foster care license from the Minnesota Department of Human Services for more than seven years, CBS News reported.

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