Kirsten Gillibrand: Presidential Hopeful
Kirsten Gillibrand is a United States Senator from New York, sitting in the seat last held by Secretary Hillary Clinton, and she is running for President in 2020.
Gillibrand officially announced her campaign for President in late March and followed it up with a passion-filled speech in front of Trump Tower in New York City. She is not one of the more well-known candidates in the field, not as well known as say, Bernie Sander, Joe Biden (who isn’t running officially), Beto O’Rourke, or Elizabeth Warren, and in a poll from January 55% of people didn’t know enough to form an opinion of her.
Senator Gillibrand is a fierce advocate of the #MeToo movement and a proud feminist. She received some criticism within the Democratic Party for being the first Democratic lawmaker to call for then-Senator Al Franken’s resignation after pictures of him, in bad taste, jokingly grabbing a woman’s breasts.
This, the fight for women equality and women’s voices to be heard is a cornerstone of her campaign and will certainly help her separate herself from the rest of the pack as no other candidate is embracing it as fully and wholeheartedly as she is. That is partially echoed in her slogan, “Be Brave”.
With the Democratic party being predominantly female she is a perfect representative for a good portion of their bloc of supporters, and she is tapping into them for support.
However, her record in Congress over her career has drawn some criticism from those on the left, who say she was too moderate in her votes in the early 2000s.
She was confronted about having an “A” rating from the NRA when she was a member of the House of Representatives, opposing amnesty for illegal immigrants, and taking donations from pharmaceutical companies.
She explained how her stances on the issues have evolved and she has become more liberal and progressive in her policy ideas since getting into the Senate and announcing her candidacy.
According to her website, she supports Medicare-For-All, the Green New Deal, fixing the criminal justice system, and gun control measures.
These are pretty progressive policies and ideas, emphasizing the fact that she has changed her views on a number of issues since getting into politics, especially since she represented a conservative-leaning district for much of her time in public office.
The Senator was seen as a possible front-runner or favorite coming into the race, but as the field expands and we inch closer and closer to the first debate in June, Gillibrand isn’t gaining much traction in the polls. She is consistently around 1% in Iowa and nationally, meaning she is going to need a big moment in an interview or to do really well in the debates to get her name, message, and campaign onto the national spotlight in order to get some momentum going.