{"id":1636237,"date":"2022-09-08T12:36:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-08T16:36:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1636237"},"modified":"2022-09-08T12:36:46","modified_gmt":"2022-09-08T16:36:46","slug":"meet-arizona-sen-mark-kelly-a-vulnerable-democrat-in-the-2022-battle-over-the-senate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/meet-arizona-sen-mark-kelly-a-vulnerable-democrat-in-the-2022-battle-over-the-senate\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly, A Vulnerable Democrat In The 2022 Battle Over The Senate"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">30<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fmeet-arizona-sen-mark-kelly-a-vulnerable-democrat-in-the-2022-battle-over-the-senate%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1636237&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is under pressure to hold his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/u-s-senate\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Senate<\/a> seat in a political climate unfavorable to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/democratic-party\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Democrats<\/a> amid soaring inflation under a historically unpopular Democratic <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/joe-biden\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">president<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly won his bid to represent <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/arizona\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Arizona<\/a> in the U.S. Senate in a 2020 special election, knocking off Republican incumbent Martha McSally, whom Governor Doug Ducey (R-AZ) appointed to fill the seat once held by the late Sen. John McCain. The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dailywire.com\/topic\/2022-midterms\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">2022 midterm election<\/a> will make or break Kelly\u2019s chance to serve his first full term as a U.S. senator.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly is running as a moderate dealmaker, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.kelly.senate.gov\/newsroom\/press-releases\/news-kelly-rated-among-most-bipartisan-senators-data-reveals\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">touting<\/a> analyses that rank him as one of the Senate\u2019s most bipartisan members based on a range of factors, but typically on the number of GOP-sponsored bills he cosigns and how many Republicans he can persuade into sponsoring his own legislation. Republicans are quick to point out that Kelly has <a href=\"https:\/\/projects.fivethirtyeight.com\/biden-congress-votes\/mark-kelly\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">voted<\/a> with President Joe Biden 94% of the time.<\/p>\n<p>Mark Kelly And His Pledge Against \u201cCorporate PACs\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kelly has violated his pledge to not \u201ctake a dime of corporate PAC money,\u201d according to <a href=\"https:\/\/dailycaller.com\/2022\/07\/24\/mark-kelly-donations-corporations\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The Daily Caller News Foundation<\/a>. While Kelly may not have accepted a direct contribution from a corporate PAC, he has taken in tens of thousands of dollars from Democratic PACs backed by corporations.<\/p>\n<p>A July review of Kelly\u2019s Federal Election Commission filings by The DCNF revealed that the senator had accepted more than $150,000 from corporate-backed Democratic PACs since March 2019. A PAC associated with Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) has donated $20,000 to Kelly\u2019s campaign. That same committee, Green Mountain PAC, has raised nearly $250,000 since 2005 from corporate PACs for Google, Pfizer, AT&#038;T, General Dynamics, and Northrop Grumman, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fec.gov\/data\/disbursements\/?cycle=2022&amp;data_type=processed&amp;committee_id=C00016683&amp;committee_id=C00078451&amp;committee_id=C00088591&amp;committee_id=C00109017&amp;committee_id=C00428623&amp;recipient_name=C00409110&amp;line_number=F3X-23\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">filings<\/a> reveal.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly has continued to claim his independence from \u201ccorporate PAC money,\u201d vowing on his <a href=\"https:\/\/markkelly.com\/why-im-running\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">website<\/a>: \u201cThis campaign is about the people of Arizona, not corporate PACs and the mess they\u2019ve created in Washington. I won\u2019t take a dime of corporate PAC money, and I\u2019ll only answer to Arizonans.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Gun Rights<\/p>\n<p>Kelly has been <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/politics\/archive\/2022\/06\/mark-kelly-absent-senate-gun-control-negotiations\/661373\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">quiet<\/a> in the gun rights debate since taking office. He has taken a backseat in recent legislative haggling over new federal gun control measures, choosing to cosponsor legislation rather than help craft it.<\/p>\n<p>Kelly\u2019s wife, former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, was the victim of a shooting in 2011 in which a gunman shot her in the face. In the aftermath, Giffords resigned from Congress and, along with her husband, launched a gun control advocacy group that eventually resulted in the Giffords Law Center, an organization that advocates for stricter gun control measures and engages in legal battles to implement them. Giffords and Kelly were both vocal supporters of gun control measures in the years following.<\/p>\n<p>In a 2017 interview with <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/magazine\/story\/2017\/10\/10\/mark-kelly-guns-lawmakers-quit-215693\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Politico<\/a>, before Kelly ran for office, he expressed doubt that he could be an \u201ceffective\u201d advocate for gun control policy.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI feel that Gabby and I and our organization, Americans for Responsible Solutions, has been incredibly effective on this issue, moving the country in the right direction on this,\u201d he responded when asked about a potential run for Arizona governor. \u201cI don\u2019t know if I could necessarily be as effective on this on the inside.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>A glance at Kelly\u2019s campaign website seems to support his conclusion. Despite Kelly\u2019s past support for gun control measures such as red-flag laws or a ban on so-called assault weapons, his website lacks any substance related to firearms policy or the Second Amendment. Under his listed \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.kelly.senate.gov\/priorities\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">priorities<\/a>,\u201d gun rights are not even mentioned.<\/p>\n<p>He has been relatively silent on the campaign trail except to make vague statements after tragedies such as the shooting in Buffalo, New York, or Uvalde, Texas. Kelly has essentially let his past activism speak for itself and avoided getting into debates over what U.S. gun policy should be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ) is under pressure to hold his Senate seat in a political climate unfavorable to Democrats amid soaring inflation under a historically unpopular Democratic president. Kelly won his bid to represent Arizona in the U.S. Senate in a 2020 special election, knocking off Republican incumbent Martha McSally, whom Governor Doug Ducey (R-AZ) &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1636239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1636237","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636237","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1636237"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1636237\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1636239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1636237"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1636237"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1636237"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}