Mark Kelly climbs ranks of Democratic hopefuls, as he barnstorms country

Sen. Mark Kelly (D-Ariz.) is climbing the ranks of potential 2028 Democratic White House hopefuls as he travels extensively around the country this year to meet voters and raise millions of dollars for Democratic candidates in key battleground states.

Kelly will have campaigned for Democratic candidates in nearly 20 states by the end of the midterm election cycle, making valuable voter and donor contacts in an array of pivotal states, such as Arizona, Georgia, Iowa, Michigan, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, South Carolina and Virginia.

Several of those states are not only key Senate battlegrounds but they will also be important presidential battlegrounds in the next election cycle.

And several of those states will be early Democratic primary states.

South Carolina will host the first Democratic presidential primary contest on Jan. 22, 2028, followed by Nevada on Feb. 1, New Hampshire on Feb. 8, New Mexico on Feb. 15, Michigan on Feb. 22 and Virginia on Feb. 29.

Kelly told The Hill in an interview Monday that he’s getting closer to making a decision about running for president but won’t do so until “the other side of this election.”

The senior senator from Arizona said he never envisioned himself running for Senate until a woman from Phoenix pleaded with him to run for the upper chamber the night before Election Day 2018 because she feared her son with Down syndrome was about to lose his healthcare coverage.

He said Republican colleagues in Washington “are missing the frustration out there.”

“Folks can’t afford their lives anymore, people getting kicked off of Medicaid and SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program], rent prices are up, young people don’t really consider buying a home now until their 40s. I bought my first house when I was 28, I was in the Navy,” he said.

Kelly this week will host a series of events across Arizona for the 18 state legislative candidates he’s endorsed to help Democrats flip the state legislature.

On Thursday and Friday, he will travel to Arizona and campaign with Democrats up and down the ballot.

He will spend the weekend in New Mexico, where he and his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-Ariz.), will speak at a rally sponsored by Sen. Ben Ray Luján (D-N.M.) and campaign with Deb Haaland, the Democratic nominee in New Mexico’s gubernatorial race.

Kelly, who was on former Vice President Kamala Harris’s short list of possible running mates in 2024, seems poised to take a prominent role in the 2028 Democratic presidential primary.

“I think he’ll be an incredibly formidable candidate for president if he decides to run. He has the temperament, the background, the experience and the proven ability to win states in a battleground state — not to mention his incredible relationship with his wife who has been through so much,” said Tad Devine, a Democratic strategist who worked on Al Gore’s 2000 presidential campaign, former Sen. John Kerry’s (D-Mass.) 2004 presidential campaign and Sen. Bernie Sanders’s (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential campaign.

A major part of Kelly’s life story is his marriage to Giffords, who was shot and severely injured in 2011. They later founded Americans for Responsible Solutions to address gun violence.

Kelly said earlier this year he will “seriously consider” a presidential run.

His credentials as a combat-tested Naval aviator and demeanor as a sharp and sober-minded senator appear well-matched to what voters may be looking for in a successor to President Trump, Democratic strategists and political experts say.

“That is a guy who would be taken very seriously by voters if he decides to run for president,” Devine said.

Kelly has played a prominent role speaking out on national security issues during Trump’s second term.

His pointed criticisms of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth — over Hegseth’s use of commercial messaging app Signal to discuss sensitive military operations, and over the Pentagon’s rapid consumption of missiles and other high-value munitions during the first weeks of the Iran war — have stood out.

Kelly told The Hill on Monday that Hegseth’s plan to livestream the execution of Fort Hood mass shooter Nidal Hasan is the latest evidence he’s unfit to lead the Defense Department.

“I think Hegseth should have been fired multiple times, on multiple occasions. The last time he should have been fired when he called for a public execution. I mean, seriously? In the United States, start publicly executing people?” he said. “That’s not who we are. That fundamentally changes the character of this country if we do it.”

Kelly made his biggest splash in the national media under Trump by recording a video with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) and several House Democrats urging military service members to disobey illegal orders.

More than anything, the backlash from the Trump administration to that video put Kelly at the center of a big national story and raised his prominence with Democratic donors, activists and voters.

Hegseth censured and tried to demote Kelly in rank and reduce his retirement pay but was blocked by a federal district court judge.

The Trump Justice Department attempted to charge him and other Democrats with seditious conspiracy, but a federal grand jury declined to indict them.

Kelly emphasizes in media appearances that he has a different background than any other Democrat who is looking at running for president in 2028.

“I spent 25 years in the Navy, 15 at NASA. I was a combat pilot in the first Gulf War. I have a background in engineering,” Kelly told ABC15, a local Arizona television station last month.

“Most of the folks up here come from some other background. There are a lot of lawyers. I have to figure out what the country needs here as we turn the corner and turn the page on this disaster of an administration,” he said of his colleagues in both chambers and of governors who are eyeing a presidential bid in the coming months.

Steve Jarding, a longtime Democratic strategist, said he “easily” puts Kelly in the top five most promising potential Democratic presidential candidates in 2028.

He argued Kelly’s background as a combat veteran and astronaut makes him stand out in a field of Democrats that could include Harris, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (N.Y.) and fellow Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.).

“I rank him very high,” Jarding said, citing “his background, his record, the military stuff, which I think is important for the Democrats to get the Department of Defense back under control … he would certainly be a voice who could do that.”

“I would put him easily in the top five, if not the top two or three. His profile would be hard to beat,” he added. “He checks a lot of boxes.”

Kelly has so far raised about $14.1 million for Democrats this election cycle, including $4.1 million for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and more than $3 million for the Democratic National Committee.

Democratic strategists say the contacts Kelly is making in early Democratic presidential primary states will pay off if he launches a run for president next year.

“It’s critical because in those early states you have to make relationships actually with people, real human beings who are key people within their states. And the only way to do that is to go there, spend time with them, get to know them and get them to come out for you early,” Devine, the former Democratic presidential strategist, explained.

Kelly’s also picking up insights from frustrated voters, such as a group of business owners in Yuma, Ariz., who met with him Monday.

He says the Trump economy is hitting people hard in unexpected ways.

Arizona has been hurt by the president’s ugly trade fight with Canada, along with his quips about making Canada the 51st state, because Canadian tourists have stopped coming south for the winter.

“I just met with some small business owners, and they are frustrated because Canadian tourists have stopped coming here. They used to benefit from Canadians in RVs [recreational vehicles] who would spend their winters here — hundreds, if not thousands, of them. And they would spend a lot of money,” Kelly said.

“One guy, I was at his restaurant today, he said that this has been harder than COVID for him,” the senator recounted. “It’s because how this president has insulted Canada. Canadians don’t come to vacation in the United States anymore, and they don’t want to buy our products when they’re even still on the shelves in Canada.”