Kelly warns far-left Democratic policies could cost party midterm seats

Senator Mark Kelly sat down with Katie Couric on Thursday and delivered a blunt assessment of his own party's political predicament. The Arizona Democrat said that calls from the party's left wing to abolish police departments, eliminate prisons, dismantle border enforcement, and cut Pentagon funding were dragging down Democratic approval ratings across the country. The problem, Kelly explained, wasn't just that these proposals existed—it was that voters were beginning to associate them with Democrats as a whole, even when individual candidates didn't support them.

"There are folks out there that say things that just don't make sense to the American people," Kelly said, listing off the proposals he found most damaging. "Those things don't make sense." When Couric pressed him on whether this ideological rift within the party could hurt Democrats in the midterm elections and beyond, Kelly didn't hedge. "It could cost us some seats," he said. "I think that's very, very possible."

The timing of Kelly's warning was pointed. Just weeks earlier, several Democratic Socialist Alliance-backed candidates had won prominent primary races. Melat Kiros defeated longtime Representative Diana DeGette in Colorado. In New York, DSA member Darializa Avila Chevalier ousted veteran Representative Adriano Espaillat, and state lawmaker Claire Valdez won the Democratic primary to succeed retiring Representative Nydia Velázquez. These victories seemed to validate Kelly's concern that the party's image problem was real and growing.

The polling data backing up Kelly's worry was stark. A Fox News survey from April showed just 42 percent of registered voters viewing the Democratic Party favorably, with 58 percent holding an unfavorable view. Sixty-one percent said Democrats were focused on the wrong issues. A Quinnipiac University poll released in May painted an even grimmer picture: only 20 percent of registered voters approved of how Democrats in Congress were performing, while 72 percent disapproved. Even among Democrats themselves, the numbers were troubling—just 41 percent approved of their party's congressional performance, while 50 percent disapproved.

Kelly made clear he did not consider himself part of the problem wing of his party. "Some of them, I think, associate it with Democrats," he said of the progressive proposals. "That's not the Democratic Party I'm in. Those aren't the policies I support." He has positioned himself as a pragmatist willing to steer money toward candidates he believes can actually win, rather than those running on what he called "stuff that is never going to happen, that is just about creating a lot of noise." During this election cycle, he said, he had raised or directed away roughly ten million dollars to candidates he deemed electable.

Kelly's comments also served as a window into his own political calculations. He said he was "seriously considering" a run for the presidency in 2028 and that his wife, former Representative Gabby Giffords, was encouraging him to enter the race. His decision, he said, would hinge on whether his family was on board and whether he genuinely believed he could win. He has already built the fundraising apparatus that a national campaign would require, suggesting his consideration is more than theoretical.

Yet the political landscape Kelly is navigating remains contradictory. Even as Democratic approval ratings have sagged, a Fox News poll released the week of his interview showed Democrats leading Republicans by seven points on the generic congressional ballot—53 percent to 46 percent. Sixty-eight percent of Democrats said they were extremely motivated to vote in November, compared with 57 percent of Republicans. Democratic support on that measure was the highest either party had recorded on Fox News' generic ballot since 1996. The party's image problem and its electoral strength, it seemed, were not moving in lockstep.