Kelly could be Democrats’ secret weapon to blunt criticism of ‘border czar’ Harris

As Vice President Kamala Harris and her team race to vet potential running mates following President Joe Biden’s departure from the 2024 race, Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is emerging as an asset who could help counter one of Harris’s biggest weaknesses: the administration’s handling of the border crisis.

Sources have confirmed Kelly is being vetted by Harris’s team. A former Navy pilot and NASA astronaut from a working-class family in New Jersey, the Arizona senator already has a strong resume made even more impactful by his powerful advocacy against gun violence after his wife, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, survived an assassination attempt during a mass shooting in 2011. 

However, it’s his expertise on the politics of the U.S.-Mexico border as the senator of a battleground state that shares several border crossings with Mexico that could be one of his largest strengths. 

“Having someone who understands how important it is for us to get technology and hire more Border Patrol officers and do better, quicker vetting — all of those things Sen. Kelly understands at the most personal levels. This is his community,” Stacy Pearson, an Arizona Democratic strategist based in Phoenix, said.

Republicans are already putting a plan in motion to remind voters that Biden tapped Harris to lead the administration’s response to the growing number of migrants arriving at the U.S. border in March 2021. The border crossings eventually became a major political liability for the Biden administration once they reached historic levels.

The House voted to condemn Harris on Thursday for her role as the “border czar” over the Biden administration’s “failure to secure the southern border” during record-high illegal immigration. Lawmakers voted 220-196 in favor of a resolution, as GOP lawmakers work to tie the vice president to some of the Biden administration’s most unpopular policies as she seeks the presidency. 

Republicans are also resurfacing comments Harris made last cycle when she said that an illegal immigrant is not a criminal offense, a point she echoed during a 2019 primary debate when she raised her hand to support decriminalizing illegal border crossings to a civil infraction.

However, Kelly could provide a perspective on the border that the other Democratic candidates being considered for the vice presidential slot could not — a fact that even some of the state’s Republicans acknowledge.

“He’s been very very engaged with the sheriffs out here and with me on the issue of the border,” said David Rhodes, the sheriff of Yavapai County, who is a Republican. “I would say he has advocated for more border security, more resources — he’s been a supporter of public safety. He and I are in different parties, but he’s done very well as far as I can tell.”

While Yavapai County encompasses an area in the center of the Grand Canyon State that is not directly on the border, Rhodes emphasizes that his community is directly affected by the high levels of unauthorized migration.

“Half of the fentanyl seized in the entire nation for the last three years has been seized right here in the state of Arizona, and it’s a major problem for all these Northern Arizona counties,” he explained.

Kelly has spoken out against some of the Biden administration’s border policies, particularly during his 2022 Senate campaign. The Arizona senator slammed Biden’s decision to end Title 42, a pandemic-era policy instituted during the Trump administration that allowed officials to turn away immigrants in the name of public health. The move had curtailed immigrants’ ability to seek asylum at the southern border.

“The administration has at times made some decisions that are not helpful to Arizona. I call the president out on it,” Kelly said in an interview with the Washington Examiner in October 2022 ahead of a campaign stop in Yuma, a city near the U.S.-Mexico border.

Kelly, who resides in Tucson, a town that is only 60 miles away from the international border, has not been as critical of Biden’s border policies since his re-election campaign. Kelly came out in support of Biden’s plan in June when the administration rolled out asylum restrictions at the border, and ever since arrests for illegal crossings have decreased. 

“Senator Kelly is a big voice in Washington, and he’s well known here in Arizona, and he certainly could be influential the more that he spoke out about it,” Rhodes said. “To be fair, he has worked behind the scenes. I know because we’ve had conversations; he’s had a lot of conversations with law enforcement about what was needed and whatnot, but he probably could be more helpful.”

Since Biden made his exit and endorsed Harris, the vice president has not spoken out about the crisis on the southern border and her role on immigration policy, which is now in the spotlight.

Speaking with the Washington Examiner on Thursday, Kelly said he’d encourage Harris to remind voters of a bipartisan compromise bill that Sens. James Lankford (R-OK), Kyrsten Sinema (I-AZ), and Chris Murphy (D-CT) and officials from the White House out together in February, but ultimately died under political pressure from Trump.

“I’ve spoken with the administration, about the border, a number of times and helped develop the legislation,” Kelly said. “We put forward the bipartisan legislation that would go a good ways to try and fix this border crisis. Unfortunately, you know, what happened was our Republican colleagues walked away from it and it had so many good things in there.”

“When Kamala Harris is the next president of the United States, you know, we are going to take a look at passing legislation again and we’re not going to have the issue of the former President trying to kill it in the United States Senate ahead of time,” Kelly added.

Arizona Democrats are firmly behind Kelly. The state party’s executive board on Wednesday endorsed Kelly to be the vice presidential nominee. Rep. Ruben Gallego (D-AZ), who is running for Arizona’s other Senate seat, which is being vacated by Sinema also made the case for Kelly, saying he would add a “jolt” to the ticket.

“I think it would be great for Democrats across the country to have someone who is a border state senator, understands border issues, is an astronaut married to Gabby Giffords, it’s all a good combination right there,” Gallego said, speaking to CNN on Wednesday. 

A new YouGov poll published on Monday showed voters viewed Trump as better than Harris at handling immigration and was ahead by 15 points. The poll was completed in the days ahead of Biden’s announcement to step down. Immigration also topped polling consistently as a top problem facing the country.

“Republicans should only be talking about the border and the economy — those are the two weakest issues for Democrats,” Barrett Marson, a longtime Republican strategist in Arizona, said. “The images of immigrants crossing the border not that long ago, these are going to be used a lot over the next three or four months.”

“The border is a deep vulnerability for the Democratic ticket, whether Mark Kelly is in it or not,” Marson added. “Mark Kelly can speak a bit more intelligently and with some experience of being a senator of a border state, but I’m not sure that he’s been a hawk on the border. So this issue isn’t going away.

Kelly has long had an appeal with Republicans and has been seen as more centrist in a state where the Republican Party is still divided between those who align behind the legacy of the late Sen. John McCain and Trump loyalists. His seat once belonged to the iconic senator and he brought it up often when campaigning last cycle. 

“It has been the honor of my life to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate, and by the way, in John McCain’s senate seat. That’s a big deal for me. Here’s a guy I looked up to when I was first in the Navy. To be able to sit at his desk every day in Washington is a big deal for me,” Kelly said to voters at a campaign stop in October 2022. 

Kelly has already gone up a candidate cut in the same mold as GOP vice presidential nominee Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH) in his previous Senate challenger, Blake Masters. Both Vance and Masters won their primary elections in 2022 with the backing of billionaire Peter Thiel, who put tens of millions of dollars into super PACs for each candidate. Vance is a former employee of Thiel’s Mithril Capital, and Masters also ran the Thiel Foundation and served as the COO at Thiel Capital.

“A benefit of Kelly is he has within the last couple years has defeated a Vance-like MAGA candidate. Masters and Vance are kind of the same,” Marson said.

Kelly’s wife, Giffords, is already getting a head start going on offense against Vance who has recently been at the center of a firestorm over his resurfaced remarks that the country was being run by “childless cat ladies.”

Giffords spoke out on social media, slamming his comments. Giffords and Kelly have previously opened up about their heartbreak at not having children after the 2011 shooting where she almost lost her life. 

“Vice President @KamalaHarris is a proud mom of two remarkable stepchildren—and so am I,” Giffords wrote on X. “@CaptMarkKelly and I were trying to have a baby through IVF before I was shot and that dream was stolen from us. To suggest we are somehow lesser is disgraceful.”