Border state hawk Mark Kelly as VP pick could help shield Harris on a major liability

WASHINGTON — Three months after he became a senator in 2021, Mark Kelly had a bone to pick with the Biden-Harris administration.

President Joe Biden had just given his first address to Congress, and Kelly, D-Ariz., accused him of failing to address “the immediate crisis at the border” and vowed to “continue holding this administration accountable” on the issue. At the time, the White House was reluctant to call it a crisis, siding with activists on the left who believed the word played into anti-immigration GOP rhetoric.

While he has been a Biden ally on most issues, Kelly remained a vocal critic on border security. He went after the White House for inadequately funding Arizona’s migrant programs and urged the administration not to reverse a Trump-era policy known as Title 42, which made it easier to turn away migrants at the U.S. border. When the White House revoked the policy anyway in 2022, Kelly called the decision “wrong” and “unacceptable” in a statement.

Two years later, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have recalibrated, issuing executive actions last month to crack down on migration. And Kelly is on the short list to be Harris’ running mate after Biden dropped his re-election bid.

“We’ve worked together on it in a very positive way. At times, there were disagreements,” Kelly told NBC News while praising “the steps that the administration has recently taken and the results that we have seen from it” in bringing down border crossings.

“The executive action that the president and vice president put into place has been a very positive thing,” Kelly said.

‘Legitimate credibility on border security’

Kelly’s stature as a border-state senator who has held hawkish positions before it was popular in the party has led some Harris allies to see him as an ideal running mate who could help neutralize what may be her biggest political vulnerability. Former President Donald Trump has put immigration at the center of his case against her. And unlike other VP contenders, such as Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Kelly is the only one getting a serious look who lives in a state along the southern border and has been out front on the issue.

“Mark Kelly is the only candidate that does exactly what [Harris] needs to do. She needs to have legitimate credibility on border security. ... Kelly solves that and increases the share of the Latino vote,” said Mike Madrid, a former GOP operative who opposes Trump. “He can personalize it because he lives in a border state.”

“There’s a legitimacy by saying, ‘Yeah, the border is out of control, but it needs to be secured, too. You can do both without being racist or without being a bad person.’ And that’s what he does very elegantly,” Madrid said.

Even some pro-immigration activists see Kelly as a solid pick, citing his support for legal pathways to citizenship and his ability to blunt Republican attacks on Harris over the border.

“Sen. Kelly has proven experience and has knowledge of border security, and he also supports citizenship for Dreamers and long-term residents. His experience would help insulate the Harris administration from Republican attacks on immigration,” said Kerri Talbot, a former Senate Democratic counsel and executive director of the advocacy group Immigration Hub.

Some Republicans say picking Kelly wouldn’t fix Harris’s problems.

“Smoke and mirrors,” said Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, who is running to be the next GOP leader in the Senate.

Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont., the chair of the party’s campaign arm, said Democrats are “all complicit” in border policy failures.

Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla., a co-author of a border security bill that Trump successfully pushed Republicans to kill, said he has worked more closely with Arizona’s other senator, independent Kyrsten Sinema, than with Kelly on the issue.

‘Donald Trump wanted this for the election’

But other Republicans who have worked on immigration and asylum policy say Kelly has better instincts about it than Harris, who is still finding her footing on the issue as a presidential candidate.

“It’s too little too late on Biden and Harris’ part on the border. This is the one area where he has credibility,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said of Kelly. “The reason that he’s been outspoken is because he’s a border state senator and he’s seen it firsthand. ... I believe he has much better instincts.”

Now, Kelly is aligned with Harris on how to respond to Trump’s attacks on border policy: Attack him for blocking attempts to fix the problem and then use it as a political weapon. At a rally Tuesday in Atlanta, Harris went after Trump for sinking the bill, telling the crowd, “Donald Trump does not care about border security. He only cares about himself.”

Speaking with NBC News, Kelly cited the bipartisan bill that sought to raise the bar for asylum and trigger a border shutdown when migration patterns warranted it.

“We had comprehensive border security legislation, bipartisan stuff, something that doesn’t happen around here on this issue very often. It’s pretty rare. And then Donald Trump wanted this for the election. So my Republican colleagues ran away from it,” Kelly said. “It’s one of the worst things I’ve seen since I’ve been here in the United States Senate.”