Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly conceded that fringe-left calls to abolish police and defund the Pentagon are costing his party credibility with voters, even as he signaled he is "seriously considering" a run for president in 2028.
Kelly made the remarks Thursday in an interview on "Next Question with Katie Couric," drawing a sharp line between himself and the Democratic Socialists of America wing that has racked up primary victories in recent weeks. The senator framed the party's brand problem in blunt terms, listing positions he said ordinary Americans reject outright.
The timing matters. Democrats hold a seven-point lead on the generic congressional ballot, their strongest showing in a Fox News poll since 1996. But beneath that top-line number, the party's favorability and approval ratings are dismal, and Kelly's own words suggest he knows the left flank is a liability the party cannot afford to ignore heading into the midterms and a wide-open presidential race.
In his interview with Couric, Kelly did not speak in abstractions. He named the slogans that he said were dragging Democrats down. As the New York Post reported, the senator listed them one by one:
"There are folks out there that say things that just don't make sense to the American people, like abolish the police or get rid of jails and prisons, get rid of the border, defund the Pentagon."
"Those things don't make sense," Kelly added.
He went further, warning that the association between those positions and the broader party could produce real electoral consequences. "It could cost us some seats. I think that's very, very possible," he said.
Kelly tried to wall himself off from the party's left wing, telling Couric that "some of them, I think, associate it with Democrats. That's not the Democratic Party I'm in. Those aren't the policies I support." He described his own approach as practical, saying he tends to "steer away from the stuff that is never going to happen, that is just about creating a lot of noise."
That last line is worth pausing on. Kelly did not say those far-left proposals are wrong on the merits. He said they are impractical and noisy. The distinction tells you something about where his objection sits: it is strategic, not principled. He is not arguing against abolishing police because communities need law enforcement. He is arguing against saying it out loud because voters do not like it.
Kelly's warning is backed by numbers his own party cannot easily dismiss. A Fox News poll conducted in April found that 58 percent of registered voters viewed the Democratic Party unfavorably, against just 42 percent who viewed it favorably. Sixty-one percent said Democrats were focused on the "wrong" issues.
A Quinnipiac University poll released in May delivered an even harsher verdict. Only 20 percent of registered voters approved of the job Democrats in Congress were doing. Seventy-two percent disapproved. Even among Democratic voters, the numbers were upside down: 41 percent approved, while 50 percent disapproved of their own party's congressional performance.
Those are not numbers a healthy political party produces. When half of your own voters disapprove of the job you are doing, the problem is not messaging. It is substance.
Kelly is no stranger to controversy himself. He drew fierce backlash earlier this year for wearing a Mexico jersey at a World Cup watch party, a tone-deaf move for a senator representing a border state where illegal immigration is a daily reality for residents.
Kelly's comments arrive as Democratic Socialists of America-backed candidates have scored a string of primary victories that illustrate exactly the dynamic he described. In Colorado, DSA-backed Melat Kiros defeated longtime Rep. Diana DeGette in a Democratic primary. In New York, DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted veteran Rep. Adriano Espaillat. And DSA-endorsed state lawmaker Claire Valdez won the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez in another New York district.
Three primaries. Three wins for the party's socialist wing. Three more candidates who will carry the DSA brand into November, and, if they win, into Congress.
That pattern is the opposite of what Kelly says the party needs. He warned Couric that fringe positions are costing Democrats credibility with mainstream voters, but his party's primary electorate keeps choosing candidates who embrace those very positions. Kelly can distance himself all he wants. The voters who show up to Democratic primaries are moving in the other direction.
The broader ideological tension within the party extends beyond domestic policy. Kelly has also clashed publicly with the Pentagon, and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's office announced it would review Kelly's public comments about a classified weapons briefing, a dispute that underscored the senator's willingness to pick fights across the aisle even as he criticizes his own side.
Democrats do have one bright spot in the data. A Fox News poll released last week showed the party leading Republicans by seven points on the generic congressional ballot, 53 percent to 46 percent. That margin is the highest either party has recorded on that Fox News measure since 1996. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats said they were extremely motivated to vote in November, compared to 57 percent of Republicans.
On paper, those numbers look strong. But Kelly's own interview suggests he does not trust them. A party with a seven-point generic ballot lead does not usually have a sitting senator going on television to warn that far-left positions "could cost us some seats." Kelly sees something in the data, or in his own travels, that the top-line number does not capture.
One explanation is straightforward. Generic ballot leads measure anti-incumbent energy and partisan sorting. They do not measure whether voters trust the party or like what it stands for. The April Fox News poll and the May Quinnipiac poll already answered that question: they do not. Democrats are benefiting from opposition energy, not from affirmative support for their agenda. Kelly appears to understand that distinction, even if much of his party does not.
Hegseth's Pentagon, meanwhile, has been the subject of its own internal scrutiny. Reports have described a top-down culture shift at the Defense Department that has generated friction with lawmakers on both sides, context that makes Kelly's call to "defund the Pentagon" critique land differently depending on which audience he is addressing.
The most revealing part of the Couric interview was not Kelly's critique of the left. It was his open acknowledgment that he is weighing a presidential campaign.
Kelly said he is "seriously considering" a 2028 run and described his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, as supportive of the idea. "She's about, you know, what's the best thing for the country? She is all about public service, and everybody needs to do their part," Kelly said of Giffords.
He also made a point of advertising his fundraising capacity. "I have the ability to, you know, raise money. I'm pretty good at that," Kelly told Couric. He claimed to have "raised or given away combined $10 million during this election cycle," directing money toward candidates he considered electable.
That framing, I raise money, I back electable candidates, I reject the noise, is a campaign pitch dressed up as party advice. Kelly is positioning himself as the adult in a party he believes is being pulled leftward by activists and primary voters who do not represent the broader electorate.
Whether that pitch works depends on whether Democratic primary voters in 2028 agree with his diagnosis. The recent DSA primary victories suggest many of them do not.
Arizona's own Democratic landscape has drawn scrutiny on other fronts. State Democrat JoAnna Mendoza recently slashed her reported net worth by 93 percent after her ties to George Soros were exposed, a reminder that the party's credibility problems in the state extend well beyond messaging.
Kelly's critique of the far left is notable for what it includes and what it leaves out. He named specific slogans, abolish police, eliminate jails, open the border, defund the Pentagon. He said those positions "don't make sense" and could cost seats. He distanced himself from the people who hold them.
But he never said those positions are wrong. He never argued that communities need police, that borders must be enforced, or that the military requires funding. His objection was purely electoral: these slogans are unpopular, and voters associate them with Democrats.
That is a strategist's complaint, not a leader's conviction. And it explains why the far left keeps winning Democratic primaries even as senators like Kelly warn against it. If the only argument against abolishing police is that the slogan polls badly, the activists who believe in abolishing police have no reason to stop. They are not trying to win a messaging war. They are trying to change policy.
Kelly wants to lead a party that he admits is moving away from the voters it needs. He has the poll numbers to prove the problem exists. He has the fundraising record to prove he can compete. What he does not have, at least based on this interview, is a substantive case for why the far left is wrong, rather than merely inconvenient.
That gap between strategy and principle is the Democratic Party's real problem. And no amount of fundraising will close it.
