With reports suggesting Vice President Kamala Harris is closely looking at Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) to be her running mate, Kelly’s boosters and Arizona politicos keep leaning on the same argument: He’s an astronaut.

“Don’t forget, the guy’s an astronaut,” said Mike Noble, an Arizona pollster.

“People like astronauts,” said Alan Zeichick, board chair of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Phoenix.

“You can’t really go wrong with someone who is an engineer, a former Navy pilot [and] a freaking astronaut,” said Alma Hernandez, a Jewish state representative from Tucson. 

Kelly, a former Navy fighter pilot who flew combat missions during the Gulf War, spent 15 years as an astronaut at NASA before retiring in 2011. But while his backers might agree that it’s hard to go against an astronaut, their reasons for championing Kelly as a Democratic running mate go deeper.

“I think one of the most important things for me is making sure that not just in Arizona, but throughout the country, [we] stop some of the rhetoric and a lot of the really crazy political drama and fights. He’s always been someone that rises above that, and that to me is extremely, extremely important,” said Hernandez. 

Hernandez has been close to Kelly and his family since her brother Daniel rushed to the aid of Kelly’s wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ), after she was shot at a constituent meeting in 2011. Now, Hernandez goes to the same synagogue as Giffords and Kelly. (Kelly is not Jewish, but Giffords is.) 

“Even though he himself is not Jewish, it is really comforting for me knowing that someone who believes in Israel’s right to exist and defend herself is someone who is being considered,” Hernandez added. “I just feel like he is someone who’s very moderate, very just grounded in his beliefs and truthfully, I feel like he’s someone that could unite the country.”

Arizona is a key swing state, and President Joe Biden’s victory there in 2020 helped propel him to the White House. Kelly defeated Republican challenger Blake Masters in 2022 by nearly five percentage points, after he was first elected in a special election in 2020. Kelly’s campaign was a fundraising juggernaut; he raised a whopping $89 million during the 2022 cycle. 

In Congress, he is known as an advocate for veterans and for gun violence prevention, work he has done alongside Giffords since she was shot more than a decade ago. Kelly, who has at times criticized Democrats’ sluggishness on border security, could help inoculate Harris against a key attack line from Republicans.

“He’s from a key battleground swing state, Arizona. Not only that, he would balance out Kamala very well,” said Noble. “I think the Republicans have tried for many years now, saying that she’s pretty radical [and] she comes from California … It’s interesting that personality wise, he comes off a little more steady, calm.”

Kelly has visited Israel twice since the Oct. 7 Hamas attacks, going first just a few days after the attack. “I will speak to members of Congress one by one if that’s what it takes to get Israel the munitions that you need to defend yourselves,” he said at a press conference in Tel Aviv. 

He returned to Israel, along with stops in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, in January, and since then has taken more of a left-leaning tack on Israel. “This trip was an important opportunity to assess the progress towards defeating Hamas and freeing the remaining hostages, while also preventing further escalation across the region,” Kelly said at the time, adding that he also urged Israeli leaders to do more to protect Palestinians. “As an ally, we have a responsibility to stand with Israel and also to state clearly both in public and in private that they must do more to keep innocent Palestinian civilians safe.”  

Since then, Kelly has raised the prospect of placing conditions on U.S. aid to Israel if Israel doesn’t do more to protect civilians. 

“I’ve talked to the ambassador — the Israeli ambassador, Michael Herzog — about this specifically: that if we don’t see some changes, I think it is appropriate to put conditions on some of this aid,” he told NBC News in May, as Israel faced pressure to forego a major ground operation in the heavily populated southern Gaza city of Rafah. 

Kelly has drawn on his military background when describing his view of Israel’s handling of the war in Gaza. He said he would still support American military sales to Israel but that the U.S. should consider sending Israel more targeted aid, “the kind of weapon that I used to drop in combat over Iraq,” he told NBC. 

“Some of what I’ve seen, based on my own personal experience as the guy that used to have to fly combat missions off of an aircraft carrier into urban environments — it’s been at times somewhat irresponsible, and the Israelis need to do better. And I do believe they can do that,” Kelly told Jewish Insider in May. “Having said that, Hamas needs to be eliminated. They are the barrier to peace in the Middle East. So the mission of eliminating Hamas, 100% behind the Israelis.”

Kelly told JI on Tuesday that he plans to attend Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s speech to Congress, which Harris will not attend, citing previously planned travel. “Israel’s an ally of ours, our only democratic ally in the region, and I’d be interested in hearing what he has to say,” Kelly told JI in May. 

Zeichick, the Phoenix JCRC board chair, met with Kelly in Washington early this year as part of a Jewish Federations of North America lobbying day. 

“He said all the right things. He knew the issues better than we did,” Zeichick said, citing Kelly’s support for increasing funding to the Nonprofit Security Grant Program and for speaking out against antisemitism. “He is as close an ally and a friend that I imagine that we could have.”

Jewish Insider congressional correspondent Emily Jacobs contributed to this report.