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Gillibrand, Looking Left, Launches Campaign For a Third Term [1]

['Nicholas Fandos']

Date: 2023-01-20  

The most pressing question facing her campaign now is whether anyone from her own party will try to challenge her. After a string of high-profile primaries from the left in New York, Democratic strategists, politicians and donors have spent months speculating whether an ambitious young member of Congress, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez or Ritchie Torres, would take on Ms. Gillibrand.

Since her appointment in 2009, the senator has made herself one of the chamber’s most vocal proponents for women and families and has shed some moderate stances on guns and immigrations to become a reliably liberal vote. Those positions could make her difficult to defeat, particularly after she passed long-term priorities this term to combat gun trafficking and overhaul the way military sexual assault cases are adjudicated.

But some critics have said that since an ill-fated run for president in 2020, Ms. Gillibrand has at times appeared aloof from her home state and restless for another office, fueling speculation about her intentions. Nor has she benefited — fairly or not — from comparisons with the state’s senior senator, Chuck Schumer, whose omnipresence at even the smallest New York political gatherings and stature as the Senate majority leader have often left her in his shadow.

In the interview, Ms. Gillibrand said that she was committed to her current role and had “unfinished work” on Capitol Hill, including a national paid family and medical leave plan.

She detailed plans for a campaign to address concerns about crime, which helped Republicans notch their best performance in decades, and to increase outreach to urban and suburban communities that slipped from the party last fall. And she said that another run for the White House was “not in the cards for me in the next cycle.”

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[1] Url: https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/20/nyregion/kirsten-gillibrand-reelection-challengers.html

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