The Scoop
Sen. Mark Kelly, D-Ariz., will travel to Michigan on Friday with his wife, former Rep. Gabby Giffords, for a town hall in the Detroit suburbs repped by John James, R-Mich.
James is running for governor in Michigan and Kelly took a low view of him in an interview with Semafor. “He runs for a lot of things, he lost a lot,” Kelly said of James, who ran for Senate twice before winning a tough House seat. “I think he does a crappy job representing his district.”
A representative for James didn’t return a request for comment by press time.
Kelly’s goal is to spotlight the impact of forthcoming Medicaid cuts and give Michiganders represented by James a lively public forum. “It puts [Republicans] on the spot a little bit, that they’re not doing this,” Kelly said.
The swing state trip may also stoke talk of the Arizona Democrat’s future ambitions, after he was on Kamala Harris’ VP shortlist.
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Kelly’s been to Michigan before, but the stakes there are higher than usual in 2026, with competitive House races, an open Senate seat, and a gubernatorial race. And though there’s a lot of daily churn in the news cycle about President Donald Trump, the Arizona Democrat said he expects the fallout from the GOP’s megabill to be the central focus of the election.
“Democrats need to explain to people across the country what this president and Republicans in the Senate and the House have done to things like their health care and food benefits for poor people,” Kelly said. “Because of all the hard work we’ve done to try to get the word out, they’re starting to understand how bad of a piece of legislation this is.”
Even so, Kelly is preparing for questions on all topics. Yes, that includes the files related to Jeffrey Epstein, which he is pushing to release.
“If you’re gonna peddle this stuff in a campaign, well, you’re gonna find yourself in a challenging position if you’re not releasing the information,” Kelly said of Trump. “Epstein’s dead, [Ghislaine] Maxwell’s in prison. But there are other victims out there that probably don’t feel like they have perceived justice.”
As for the Senate race, Kelly is paying close attention. He knows two of the Democratic Senate candidates, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Rep. Haley Stevens, who are running to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich. A vice chair of Democrats’ campaign arm, Kelly said the party is looking at the primary but has “not made any decision.”
He did scoff at the chances of the repeat bid from former GOP Rep. Mike Rogers, who he said “lost when Republicans were winning” in 2024. Rogers did get some good news this week, though, as Rep. Bill Huizenga, R-Mich., took a pass on challenging him in the primary.