A call from England and two hectic weeks: Behind the scenes of Mark Kelly's frantic VP run

U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly woke up Tuesday not knowing whether he would be Vice President Kamala Harris’ running mate or remain one of the Democratic nominee’s prominent surrogates.

Harris called Kelly, D-Ariz., before she made public her decision Tuesday morning naming Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz as her VP pick.

It brought a quick, if anticlimactic, ending to an unexpected run in the national spotlight for Kelly. Another call, from England, was perhaps a first step in a hectic two-week sprint for Democrats to complete the overhaul of their presidential ticket.

Joel K. Goldstein, a retired constitutional law professor at Saint Louis University who has written two books on the vice presidency, said Harris’ pick seemed to reflect her desire for a running mate who had elective experience in tough races and could appeal to voters in Midwestern states expected to be critical for the campaign.

The fact that Kelly was a finalist, and the only senator in the mix by that point, is a sign of how seriously the Harris camp saw him, Goldstein said.

“To be in the VP selection process, it’s an indication that you’re thought of as somebody who’s ready for the national stage,” he said. “From his standpoint, while the outcome may be temporarily disappointing, it certainly gives him a louder and enhanced voice within the party and in the nation.”

Kelly had been a notable backer of President Joe Biden and Harris for weeks after the disastrous June 27 debate that ultimately led Biden to exit the race.

Ahead of Biden’s decision to abandon his reelection campaign, Democrats pondered the possibility of an open battle for the party’s nomination if he did.

But when Biden announced he was stepping out of the race on July 21, he quickly threw his support to Harris to be the nominee.

Kelly called Harris within hours offering her his support, which was followed by public statements to that effect.

At the time, Kelly was in England as part of a congressional delegation that met the United Kingdom’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, and attended the Farnborough International Airshow, an annual aerospace, aviation and military conference.

Harris clinched the nomination within a day as potential contenders such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer took themselves out of the running.

That meant the real race heading into this month's Democratic National Convention in Chicago would be for the vice-presidential slot.

By that time, Kelly’s name was among several Democrats tested in a poll against former President Donald Trump who fared better than Biden did. The poll, conducted by a Democratic-aligned firm trying to help convince Biden to leave the race, also served to jump-start the veepstakes when Biden did.

Kelly quickly became part of a roster of possible picks that shifted many times over the roughly two weeks that Harris had to consider them.

It was clear early on that it was top-heavy with governors. Kentucky’s Gov. Andy Beshear, for example, was another contender, as was North Carolina’s Roy Cooper. Both men knew Harris from her days as California’s attorney general because they held similar posts in their states.

Kelly, however, never had especially close ties to Harris.

He arrived in the Senate in December 2020 after winning the special election to finish the final two years of the term the late U.S. Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won in 2016. McCain died of brain cancer in 2018.

By the time Kelly joined the Senate, Harris was the vice president-elect and was joining the Biden administration.

Kelly introduced Harris on Dec. 1, 2021, when she chaired her first meeting of the National Space Council at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

The council is a low-profile advisory group traditionally headed by the vice president.

Harris and Kelly bumped forearms as a greeting at a time when attendees still wore masks because of the pandemic.

He praised her and the Biden administration for having a commitment to the issue of space. She praised him for his courage, commitment and patriotism.

They appeared to have little direct work together in the intervening years, though Kelly was often a key Democratic vote in contentious matters and Harris, who is nominally the Senate president to break tie votes, has done so at least 33 times.

But the upheaval in the Democratic ticket pushed both Harris and Kelly into new roles.

Her campaign team considered Kelly throughout the vetting process.

Kelly had what amounted to an audition for the role of attack dog during an extended appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” last week. He discussed conditions on the southern border — an area viewed as a key strength for Kelly — and he shredded Trump and his vice-presidential pick, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, who was visiting the Arizona border that day.

“Like a lot of other Republicans, they don’t actually want to solve this problem,” Kelly said. “They just want to talk about it. That’s why his running mate, JD Vance, is down at the border to take a picture. That’s the only reason he’s there.”

It was the end stage of a process that included endless speculation and took several twists and turns in its relatively compressed duration.

Cooper, for example, took himself out of the running. The mayor of Philadelphia released a video on social media reacting to the selection of Shapiro as the vice-presidential pick before Shapiro met Harris on Sunday to discuss the matter.

Harris and Kelly met face-to-face Sunday in Washington for about an hour to discuss the possibility of Kelly joining the Democratic ticket. It is believed that Walz and Shapiro were the only others to receive private meetings for the vice-presidential pick.

Whatever Harris thought, she didn’t tip her hand, though Kelly briefly faced a firestorm of controversy from those who thought he had ruled himself out of the running.

Some interpreted a tweet from Kelly’s personal X account as a sign that he knew he didn’t get the job.

“My background is a bit different than most politicians,” the post said. “I spent my life serving in the Navy and at NASA, where the mission always comes first. Now, my mission is serving Arizonans.”

It was the kind of message frequently shared on that account and was part of other messages that included his campaign ads playing up his biography as a Navy combat pilot and astronaut. In the context of a spot on the presidential ticket, it was seen as something else.

Jacob Peters, a Kelly spokesperson, tried to play down the social media post with one of his own.

“An Arizona senator tweeting about being an Arizona senator is not news! Go back to your Sundays everybody!” he wrote.

But by Tuesday morning, Kelly did acknowledge that he would not be on the ticket.

In an email to his supporters Tuesday, Kelly offered quick support for the Harris-Walz ticket.

“This isn’t about me. It never has been,” Kelly wrote.

“It’s about the future of our country. It’s about whether our kids grow up with fewer rights than the generations before them. It’s about whether our economy creates opportunity for everyone, or is rigged for billionaires. It’s about whether we strengthen our alliances, or see them shredded.”

Kelly won’t be on the ticket, but he will have his chances to make the case for Harris and Walz.

The first opportunity may come Friday when the Democrats visit Phoenix as part of their tour across the swing states this week. Kelly will be there, too. After that, he could be a featured speaker at the Democratic convention.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Two hectic weeks in the campaign's glare: Mark Kelly's frantic VP run