Retired astronaut Mark Kelly on Tuesday said he will run for a Senate seat in his adopted home state of Arizona, giving Democrats an early chance at a seat they have not held since the late Sen. Carl Hayden (D) retired in 1969.
Kelly spent more than 54 days in space across three NASA missions. He has turned to politics in the years since his wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), survived an assassination attempt in a 2011 mass shooting that claimed the lives of six others.
Announcing his campaign in a video posted to Twitter, Kelly leaned hard into his career as a Navy aviator and astronaut — and on his wife, who appeared with him.
“It becomes pretty obvious pretty early when you get into space that we’re all in this together,” Kelly said in the video.
Kelly will face another former aviator, Sen. Martha McSally (R), who held the same seat in Congress that Giffords once held.
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04.23.2024