Who is Mark Kelly? All about the US senator from Arizona and Gabrielle Giffords' husband

As Democrats nationally are reconsidering whether to renominate President Joe Biden for a second term, one name being kicked around as a possible replacement somewhere on the ticket is Arizona’s U.S. Sen. Mark Kelly.

For his part, Kelly has repeatedly called for voters to stick with Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris.

“The goal here is to reelect President Biden,” he told Roll Call earlier this month. “What I can tell you from my personal experience with public polling, it’s not entirely accurate.” On Friday, he again urged support for the Biden-Harris ticket in a social media post.

Here’s what you need to know about Kelly, D-Ariz.

Arizona politics: If Mark Kelly becomes Democrats' vice presidential nominee, who would replace him in the Senate?

Who is Mark Kelly?

He has been in the Senate since the 2020 elections and is a man whose life story seems to have several elements that would be the biggest part of most people’s biography. He was a Navy combat pilot. He was an astronaut. So was his twin brother, Scott. His wife survived being shot in the head. He is the author of several books and one of the wealthier members of the Senate.

How old is Mark Kelly?

Mark Edward Kelly grew up in West Orange, N.J., to parents who both worked as police officers. He was born on Feb. 21, 1964, so he is 60.

Who is Mark Kelly's twin brother?

Kelly's twin brother, Scott Joseph Kelly, is a veteran of four space flights. Now retired from NASA, Scott Kelly commanded the International Space Station on three expeditions.

Who is Mark Kelly's wife?

Kelly is married to former U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, D-Ariz.

They met on a U.S.-China trade mission in 2003 and were married in 2007.

At the time of their wedding, Kelly was still an astronaut and Giffords, a Tucson native who had been a state lawmaker, was a freshman in Congress.

On Jan. 8, 2011, she was shot in the head at a constituent event near Tucson by a man with paranoid schizophrenia. Six people died and 12 others besides Giffords were wounded.

Afterward, Kelly and Giffords formed an organization now called Giffords that advocates for what they describe as common-sense gun regulations.

Kelly emerged as a national spokesperson on the issue for years ahead of his career in politics. Giffords resigned her seat in Congress in 2012.

Kelly's first marriage ended in divorce after 15 years. He has two adult daughters.

Where did Mark Kelly get his education?

Kelly received a bachelor’s degree with highest honors in marine engineering and nautical science from the U.S. Merchant Marine Academy. He received a master’s degree in aeronautical engineering from the U.S. Naval Postgraduate School.

He was a Navy fighter pilot and during Operation Desert Storm was stationed on the USS Midway, from which he flew 39 missions.

During his military career, Kelly received numerous medals, including the Defense Superior Service Medal, Legion of Merit, two Distinguished Flying Crosses, and multiple Air Medals. He retired as a captain.

What was Mark Kelly's NASA career?

In 1996, NASA accepted Kelly and his brother, Scott, as space shuttle pilots.

Mark Kelly flew his first shuttle mission in December 2001. He flew a second mission in 2006 and a third in 2008.

His final mission came in 2011, just months after Giffords was shot. He and NASA decided to keep him as commander of the team.

Giffords traveled from Houston, where she was recovering from her injuries, to Florida for the launch.

Three weeks after returning to Earth, Kelly announced he would retire from NASA later that year, citing his wife’s medical needs.

How did Mark Kelly get into politics?

Kelly first entered politics in 2019 when he announced he was running for the U.S. Senate in 2020.

The race was a special election to complete the final two years of the term Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., won in 2016. McCain died of brain cancer in August 2018, too late for an election that year, and then-Gov. Doug Ducey appointed a temporary replacement, former three-term Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz.

Kyl stepped down at the end of that year and Ducey named U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, R-Ariz., to replace him at the outset of the next Congress. McSally had just lost the race for the state’s other Senate seat to Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, a Democrat who later became an independent.

Kelly defeated McSally by 2 percentage points in 2020.

He then had the unusual task of running for reelection in 2022 for a full six-year term. He defeated Republican Blake Masters for a term that won’t expire until after the 2028 elections.

What stands out in his Senate tenure?

He was willing to set aside the legislative filibuster in January 2022 to pass a voting-rights bill because he said it was needed to preserve a foundational right when it was under attack.

At the same time, Kelly has advocated military aid to Ukraine and Israel in their ongoing wars and has shown support for Taiwan as tensions with mainland China rise.

He criticized the Biden administration for allowing the southern border to become a “crisis” and voted to pass a bipartisan border-security bill this year. That measure failed after former President Donald Trump urged Republicans to defeat the bill to avoid handing Biden a legislative victory during an election year.

Kelly helped shape the CHIPS and Science Act, which provides billions in taxpayer subsidies to bring advanced manufacturing operations into the U.S. That legislation is intended to help make the nation less dependent on Chinese-made semiconductors.

Kelly has an evident interest in foreign affairs and is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Joint Economic Committee.

His background in science also makes him an advocate for mitigating climate change.

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What are Mark Kelly's controversies?

Republicans hit Kelly in 2020 as beholden to China, citing capital funding from a Chinese technology company used to help get World View Enterprises, a company Kelly co-founded, up and running in Tucson.

That company uses balloons for launching lower-altitude “stratollites” for commercial and government mapping and surveillance. Its clients have included NASA and the Pentagon.

Among the early investors in World View was Tencent Holdings, a Chinese company that operates a popular messaging app in that country and that has close working ties to the government in Beijing.

Kelly dismissed concerns that Beijing had undue influence on him at the time and his rhetoric on China in the years since suggest a willingness to buck Beijing.

In 2023, for example, Kelly was part of a bipartisan group that met with Taiwan’s President Tsai Ing-wen during her visit to the U.S. He visited the island later that year as part of an Arizona trade delegation.

He told The Arizona Republic that America’s close trade relations with Taipei and the growth of semiconductor manufacturing in Arizona are an irritant to Beijing.

“My sense is this is something (the Chinese) are not in favor of, this economic relationship that we have with Taiwan, but that’s not up to them,” he said.

Also in 2020, Kelly apologized for a joke he made about the effects of a year in space on his brother to the Boy Scouts of America.

“It’s gotten so bad, that we recently had to release him back into the wild,” Kelly said to laughter. “He’s like halfway between an orangutan and a Howler Monkey. We’ve even changed his name to Rodrigo. He lives in the woods.”

Republican businessman Moses Sanchez posted video of the event on social media, calling it “shameful” and showed Kelly “making a racist joke to an all-white crowd. He must think people named Rodrigo look like monkeys.”

Kelly said it was a joke that fell flat.

“My brother's year in space was really hard on him and we tried to bring some light to his difficult ordeal, but this comment does not do that and I apologize and deeply regret it,” he said.

Elections: Mark Kelly could bring pluses, minuses to Democratic presidential ticket: What to know

Why is Mark Kelly being considered for the ticket?

Kelly seems to possess something Democrats desperately need now: strength and vitality.

He flew 39 missions during the Gulf War in 1991. He piloted the space shuttle four times, including the final mission for the Endeavour craft.

Kelly’s military and space chops give him credibility with an unusually wide audience from the outset.

Beyond that, Kelly is a reliable Democrat who casts himself as an independent thinker who ran as a centrist in 2020. Kelly that year "won on a message of partisan independence, science-based decision-making, affordable health care and insurance coverage for preexisting medical conditions against the backdrop of a lethal pandemic," The Arizona Republic reported at the time.

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Who is Mark Kelly? He's a US senator and Gabrielle Giffords' husband