The battle for the Democratic ticket in the 2028 presidential election just got a lot more interesting.
Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is making overtures about running, as we had expected him to do, and that will dramatically change this race.
He will hurt California Governor Gavin Newsom, but can he take enough away from Kamala Harris to be a real threat?
It is a given that Newsom will be running for president, and it does appear as though he will have the backing of the power brokers in the party.
Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is already gushing over him, with a former aide calling her a “fan girl” of Newsom’s.
A report broke this week regarding the aide’s comments, stating, “She’s a Gavin fan girl and she doesn’t crush on many people. I will say this: She’s hardly ever wrong. When she says she sees something, it’s a real thing.”
Newsom has been a horrible governor for the state, and he is clearly more interested in creating a presidential profile than he is in doing his job. But he has charisma, and he is being plastered all over the internet right now. These days, that seems more important to voters.
Kelly has now made comments about running for president at least twice, so I will operate on the premise that he will run.
The Arizona Democrat is still playing coy, but he stated people are coming to him all the time about entering the race, to which he stated, "So you know, I'll seriously consider this, because we are in some seriously challenging times right now.”
Of all the Democrats, the one I fear most right now is Kelly.
He is a former astronaut and a Naval aviator, so there is the hero factor. He is a great speaker, he is intelligent, and he is a fairly fresh face on the scene. He has also been harshly attacked by Donald Trump, so he can play the victim card that Democrats love so much.
When the first whispers of Kelly entering this race were heard, he hit the board at 7% in a YouGov poll. In that same poll, Harris took the lead back over Newsom by three points, so I think Kelly is already hurting Newsom.
There have been several other polls run since then, but the numbers are pretty crazy, so I still don’t trust them until I see a fresh set of numbers so we can see if this is a momentum shift or just outlier polling.
I think AOC killed any chances she had of being at the top of the ticket in Munich with her word salads and new geography, which more or less makes this a three-horse race, at least in my opinion.
When the dust settles, I see this as Harris, Newsom, and Kelly, and I think the more exposure Kelly gets, the more support he will get. I don’t fear Harris, and Newsom only scares me because of his camera presence, but Kelly could be the real deal. This is clearly something we need to monitor as it develops, because I fully expect a formal announcement as soon as the upcoming cycle is completed.
