Barber, once Giffords' aide, will now seek to replace her in a special election. Ex-aide: Giffords wants to me to run

Revealing that he’d been personally encouraged by Gabrielle Giffords to run for her seat, Ron Barber, an ex-aide who was also injured in the shooting in Tucson last year, on Thursday officially declared his candidacy for Arizona’s 8th congressional district.

Barber, who was Giffords’s former district director, was one of the 13 people wounded in the fatal shooting outside of a supermarket last January. The congresswoman suffered a bullet wound to the head and six people were killed. Giffords formally resigned in January after spending a year in physical therapy, saying she needs to focus entirely on her recovery.


In a conference call with reporters Thursday afternoon, Barber said Giffords asked him to consider running for her seat “a couple of weeks back.”

“The congresswoman looked at me directly and said, ‘Ron, will you run?’ And that started a discussion within my family to assess whether it was a good idea to do that,” Barber said. “And finally I decided after much consideration that it was something I could do and wanted to do.”

Asked whether Giffords will be making a formal endorsement, Barber said he told the congresswoman, “Thank you for asking me, supporting me, and I’m honored to have your support,” and that even though he isn’t sure whether the couple will campaign with him in the coming months, that Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly promised that “they will do everything they can to help me.”

In an email to supporters on Thursday, Kelly called Barber “a leader who puts politics aside and brings people together” and someone who has spent his entire career fighting for others in need.

“Gabby and I are honored to stand with Ron as he launches his campaign,” Kelly wrote, announcing their goal of getting 1,000 donations by Monday.

“Thank you for standing with Gabby and I through this last year. Now, we ask you to stand with Ron as he helps to continue the work we began together,” he said.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer announced last month the dates for the special elections to replace Giffords – April 17 for the primary and June 12 for the general.

One reporter asked 66-year-old Barber on the conference call how his health was, in an apparent reference to the two bullet wounds he suffered in the shooting. Barber said his “health is great,” and that it has “gotten better by the minute, by the day.”

“I would stress that,” he added, noting that his health was a big part of his decision-making process.

Barber also said he is currently using a leg brace and that he has much more mobility and energy than in the past. “I wouldn’t be doing it if I didn’t think I could.”

Following Barber’s announcement, National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Daniel Scarpinato said in a statement, “No one wanted this special election to happen, but it comes at a time when Arizona and our country are at a critical crossroads. The issues and challenges are too great to deny voters a full debate on which candidate is best to secure our border, create jobs and turn our economy around.”

Jesse Kelly, Giffords’s Republican opponent from 2010, is also running in the special election. As The Associated Press reports, other Republicans in the race are Dave Sitton, state Sen. Frank Antenori, former Air Force pilot Martha McCally and John Lervold, a civilian instructor at the Army’s Fort Huachuca.

State Rep. Matt Heinz is the only other Democrat who has announced a run for Giffords’s old seat — he has said he will only run for a full term in November if Barber jumps into the special election, the AP said. On Thursday’s conference call, Barber said he had not spoken to Heinz.