Sen. Mark Kelly (D) will run for re-election in Arizona against Republican Blake Masters this fall. Kelly is a former navy combat pilot who flew 39 combat missions in Operation Desert Storm.
Kelly later worked for NASA as an astronaut alongside his twin brother Scott. Mark visited space four times. In 1996, Mark stayed on Earth while Scott spent about a year in space so that scientists could study the effects on the human body.
In 2007, Mark Kelly married Gabby Giffords, who–at the time–was a Democrat representing Arizona in the House of Representatives.
In 2011, she was shot in the head by one of her constituents. She survived, and later that year, Kelly retired.
The two became advocates for gun safety legislation, and in 2019, Kelly announced he’d be running for Senate. He won as a Democrat in 2020.
As of July 2022, he voted in line with President Biden 94% of the time, according to FiveThirtyEight.
Nearing the midterms in a purple state, he started moving away from strict party loyalty. He voted to impose new sanctions over the Nord Stream 2 pipeline and opposed ending Title 42.
Kelly has also begun to block some of Biden’s nominations.
