Mark earned his B.A from Brandeis University in 1995, majoring in politics, and his M.S. from the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, in 1997.^{[citation needed]} Early in his career, Mark was a local reporter, and then worked briefly for the Associated Press.^[1] He moved to Washington, D.C., in 2000, to become a House floor/leadership reporter for Congressional Quarterly's daily publication. He then served as editor-in-chief of Campaigns & Elections magazine, which covers the business and trends of politics.^{[citation needed]}

Today, Mark is editor-in-chief of the Politix website. Mark is also a frequent analyst in the media on political and current affairs topics.^{[citation needed]} He often speaks to academic, business, educational and international groups, spanning the globe from Australia, Austria,^[2] Belgium, Fiji, Finland, France, Israel, Lithuania, The Netherlands,^[3] to New Zealand.

Mark's first book, Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning, was published in March 2006, with two subsequent updated editions. Going Dirty is a history of negative campaigning in American politics and an examination of how candidates and political consultants have employed this often-controversial technique. Going Dirty has gone on to be utilized by numerous college courses and news sources.^{[citation needed]}

Mark's latest book is entitled Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs and Washington Handshakes: Decoding the Jargon Slang and Bluster of American Political Speech. Written with Chuck McCutcheon, co-author of the 2012 edition of the Almanac of American Politics, Dog Whistles decodes what politicians really mean when they use the "insider" political jargon that is often inaccessible to the public. Emmy Award-winning television political analyst Jeff Greenfield also wrote the foreword to the book. As Ron Fournier, national political columnist for the National Journal, reviewed, Dog Whistles is "an extraordinarily accessible and informative book that belongs on the desk of any politically-minded reader. It's my BS translator."^{[citation needed]} The book was also reviewed by The Wall Street Journal book reviewer, Henry Allen. According to his review, "'Dog-whistles, Walkbacks and Washington Handshakes' will not be the last book written on political language, because political language will remain as irritating, fascinating, obfuscatory and dishonest as ever. But until the next book comes along, this one will reassure the cynics, anger the idealists, encourage a healthy skepticism and amuse those readers comfortable with the knowledge that nothing has changed and nothing will change."^[4]

• Mark, David (2006). Going Dirty: The Art of Negative Campaigning. Lanham, Md.: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7425-9981-9.
• McCutcheon, Chuck; Mark, David (2014). Dog Whistles, Walk-Backs and Washington Handshakes: Decoding the Jargon Slang and Bluster of American Political Speech. ISBN 978-1611686036.

• Appearances on C-SPAN