PHOENIX — As Democrats rally around Kamala Harris after President Joe Biden announced he would not seek reelection, Arizona's Sen. Mark Kelly has emerged as a strong contender for vice president.
The Arizona senator leveraged his career as an astronaut to build a brand as a moderate in a state that long supported Republicans.
In his two campaigns — the first in 2020 to finish the term of the late Republican Sen. John McCain and the second two years later for a full term — Kelly has earned more votes than any other Democrat on the ballot. He outpolled Biden, who narrowly won Arizona, by 2 percentage points in 2020.
Kelly’s first turn in the national political spotlight came through tragedy. His wife, then-U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was shot in the head while meeting with constituents outside a grocery store in Tucson. The shooting left six people dead and spawned an early reckoning with political violence and partisan rancor.
Giffords’ survival made her a national inspiration but snuffed out a promising political career of her own. She and Kelly went on to found a gun-control advocacy group, and Giffords has been a powerful surrogate as Kelly has taken her place in politics.
In the Senate, Kelly has focused on national security and the military as well as the drought plaguing the U.S. West. He was instrumental in crafting the CHIPS and Science Act, a bill signed by Biden to boost U.S. semiconductor manufacturing.
Kelly was a Navy test pilot and flew 39 combat missions during the Gulf War before joining NASA, where he flew three missions on the space shuttle.
Originally from New Jersey, he settled with Giffords in Tucson after retiring from NASA and the Navy.
Unlike Arizona Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, who was elected as a Democrat two years before Kelly but later left the party to become an independent, Kelly has managed to retain the support of the party’s grassroots base without alienating independent voters.
Kelly was one of four contenders, and NBC reported that Harris's campaign requested vetting materials from them. North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper; Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz were also reportedly contacted.
The Harris campaign hasn't announced a pick at this time, leaving much of the discussion up to speculation.
All 91 members of the Arizona Democratic Party’s 2024 Delegation formally voted to support Harris, making Kelly an unlikely pick to replace Biden as the primary nominee for the party.
Previously, Bluelabs Analytics interviewed over 15,000 voters across seven battleground states to "test whether different options for the Democratic nominee would increase or decrease vote share."
The results showed Kelly was one of the top candidates to beat Trump, polling 5 points above Biden in battleground states.
"And while three of our top performers have home states within the battleground, all of them performed well in other states as well," the research said.
The other candidates were Maryland Governor Wes Moore, Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer.
Kelly has endorsed Kamala Harris as the Democratic nominee.
"I couldn’t be more confident that Vice President Kamala Harris is the right person to defeat Donald Trump and lead our country into the future," Kelly said on X. "She has my support for the nomination, and Gabby and I will do everything we can to elect her President of the United States."
Comments on the X post suggest some want to see Kelly as a running mate.
Biden has been the presumptive nominee for months after easily winning almost every primary election in a mostly uncontested race. But he was never officially nominated since that process happens in August.
Vice President Kamala Harris was endorsed by Biden as his replacement, but she isn’t guaranteed to be the Democratic presidential nominee. That’s because party rules allow the Democratic Party to pick another candidate.
The presidential nominee is decided by delegates at the Democratic National Convention. Delegates are assigned to vote for a candidate based on the results of their state's primary election.
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Decision 2024
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