John William Warner III was an American lawyer and politician who served as the United States Secretary of the Navy from 1972 to 1974 and as a five-term Republican U.S. Senator from Virginia from 1979 to 2009. Warner served as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee from 1999 to 2001, and again from 2003 to 2007. He also served as the Chair of the Senate Rules Committee from 1995 to 1999.

Warner was a veteran of the Second World War and Korean War, and was one of five World War II veterans serving in the Senate at the time of his retirement.[1] He did not seek reelection in 2008. After leaving the Senate, he worked for the law firm of Hogan Lovells, where he had previously been employed before joining the United States Department of Defense as the Under Secretary of the Navy during the presidency of Richard Nixon in 1969.

Warner's 2002 re-election is the most recent election in which a Republican won a U.S. Senate seat in Virginia.