Former NASA astronaut and gun reform activist Mark Kelly has announced he is running for Senate in Arizona. Kelly’s life was upended in 2011, when his wife, then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, survived a mass shooting that took the lives of six people and wounded more than a dozen. In an announcement video (watch below), Giffords appears with Kelly as he recounts the shooting. “I thought then that I had the risky job” as an astronaut, he says. “Turned out, that you were the one who had the risky job.” Since the shooting, the two have organized and lobbied relentlessly for stronger gun laws.
Kelly is entering what’s expected to be a competitive Democratic primary to challenge Sen. Martha McSally for the last two years of the late Sen. John McCain’s term. McSally became the second person appointed to succeed McCain after she lost a Senate race to now-Sen. Kyrsten Sinema last November, prompting the first appointee to step down. Having lost once, McSally is a juicy target for 2020.