Mark Kelly May Have Just Wrapped Up the Vice Presidential Nomination

Editor’s note published on 7/25: Mark Kelly decided to pick up Josh Shapiro’s baggage and now I’m not so sure he “may have just wrapped up the VP nomination.”

The race to be Kamala Harris’s vice president began in earnest this week as Joe Biden ushered us into a coconut-based future, and as Jezebel excellently detailed, this contest is between non-controversial white men. Two primary contenders emerged in Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro and Arizona Senator Mark Kelly, according to a senior administration official who told ABC News, and given the positive vibes coursing through the party’s veins right now as the race shifts to a more energetic dynamic which favors the Democrats, the best pick they can make is the least controversial one.

As much fun as dissecting the drama for the VP is, there’s very little data indicating a president’s veep has much of a measurable impact on the race, and the widespread belief that a candidate brings their own state with them is simply not true. This stuff is a lot more complicated than cable news bookers think it is, as demonstrated by Bill Clinton winning Al Gore’s home state of Tennessee twice with him on the ticket before Gore lost it himself in 2000.

Really the best you can hope for is that the VP can shore up some of the president’s electoral weaknesses around the edges, like Barack Obama choosing Joe Biden to help him pick up more white voters, and Kelly and Shapiro both serve a similar purpose for Kamala Harris. Shapiro represents a riskier pick than Kelly, as he has similar problems with labor but much more intractable ones with left over how he has handled student protests over the Israeli genocide in Gaza. Shapiro’s selection would roll back a lot of the coconutmentum Harris has made with the left, plus his office’s sexual harassment settlement makes him a suboptimal candidate to run against Trump, and there’s no reason to pick unnecessary intra-party fights when the vibes are this good and all the non-controversial white men blend together so easily.

Kelly is a former United States Navy captain and an astronaut whose wife is former Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was the victim of an assassination attempt in 2011 when she was shot in the head and survived. His lived experience nails every contrasting note the Democrats could possibly hope to hit against a criminal real estate developer and a doofus venture capitalist who believes the left thinks sodas are racist. From the moment the shortlist was released, it was clear Kelly was at the top of it.

Shapiro rose quickly too, though in large part likely due to the immense importance of his state. Whoever wins Pennsylvania is likely to win the election (because at least one of Michigan and Wisconsin should follow it), but assuming that a first-term governor in a true swing state is a lock to bring it home for the Dems is a stretch. There’s also the issue of replacing Shapiro, as the Democrats could lose a governor’s seat should they pick him. Selecting Kelly carries less risk in this regard, as Arizona’s Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs would replace Kelly, with a special election for his seat taking place in 2026.

So logistically, Kelly has the upper hand on Shapiro, and he certainly has a better story. Again, whether these guys have a tangible impact on the race is dubious, so really what should be at the forefront of this decision are the relative downsides to each candidate, and Mark Kelly just did a lot to try to resolve his biggest one.

If there is one thing to be gleaned from the Trump era, it’s that the Democrats cannot take unions for granted. They are the backbone of the 20th century party, and its betrayal of unions is a central narrative in both the fall of the corporatist Clinton coalition and the rise of Donald Trump. Since 2021, Mark Kelly has opposed the signature piece of union legislation in this country, the PRO Act, and is the only Senate Democrat not cosponsoring it. He also joined with Kirsten Sinema and Joe Manchin in 2022 to hand Biden a surprise defeat on David Weil, his nominee to lead the Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division, which was the first time a Biden nominee lost a Senate floor vote. Kelly was also one of the last holdouts against acting Secretary of Labor Julie Su’s nomination, only jumping on board after immense pressure from the White House and his own constituents, but only once Su’s “nom was on life support.”

To say unions are concerned about Mark Kelly’s atrocious labor record is an understatement, as John Samuelsen, president of the Transport Workers Union, flatly told ABC News that “Why would the Democrats even consider a senator for the vice presidency if the senator doesn’t support the PRO Act?” and it seems like Mark Kelly and the Democrats have listened, as reported by The Huffington Post this afternoon:

But Kelly on Wednesday made clear in an interview with HuffPost that he would support the bill if it came to the Senate floor, affirming enthusiastic support for labor unions. He is not listed as a co-sponsor on the Senate’s most recent version.

“Unions loom large in our life, and I’m supportive of the PRO Act,” Kelly said, recounting how when his mother, a police officer, was injured, her union helped her recover.

“I would have voted for it on Day 1,” he added of the bill. “I would vote for it today. I am, like a lot of legislation, working to make it better. But if it came to the floor today or any day going back to the day I was sworn in, I would vote for it.”

Unions will surely require more than just a statement like this to assuage their concerns over Kelly, especially the cynical “I would have voted for it on Day 1” quote when he’s the only Democrat not to cosponsor it, and he will have to put in additional work to reverse the years he has spent detracting from his labor bona fides. But if Kamala Harris has a robust labor policy platform, Kelly’s reversal on the PRO Act could be enough to quell concerns that she is trying to pull a bait and switch on a vital constituency being courted by Trump, and convince rank-and-file union members that Kelly’s anti-labor posture is not welcome in her White House.

The VP pick inside the party is an expression of your campaign’s values, but outside it is pure optics. Now that Kelly has jumped on board with key Democratic Party values, the optics of going with a literal astronaut and a former United States Navy captain just seem blindingly obvious.