Gillibrand’s Town Hall and 2020 Prospects
Election 2020,Kirsten Gillibrand,Presidential Elections,Elections
“Despite a soaring national profile in the U.S. Senate, [Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY)] has failed to achieve liftoff as a presidential prospect. She has not broken 2 percent in a single national poll since officially declaring her candidacy in mid-March, and her 0.4 percent average in the RealClearPolitics aggregate of surveys places her behind the likes of Julián Castro, Tulsi Gabbard and even geeky long shot Andrew Yang.” (Politico)
The left wonders if Gillibrand still has a path to the nomination, and applauds her town hall performance.
“In the two years leading up to her 2020 run, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand spent millions of dollars building up a network of online and grass-roots donors who could power her coming presidential campaign. But after Ms. Gillibrand’s big announcement in January, her expensively laid plans unraveled as those potential contributors all but vanished… Her campaign says she is connecting one voter at a time in coffee shops and living rooms. But in a celebrity-fueled climate dominated by mass media and viral moments online, it is not clear such a pathway exists in 2020.” (Shane Goldmacher, New York Times)
The right is critical of Gillibrand’s candidacy and town hall performance, highlighting her seemingly opportunistic changes in policy positions over time.
“Gillibrand, the tip of the spear for the #MeToo movement in Congress, Senate successor to Hillary Clinton and one time doyenne of the Wall Street bundlers doesn’t have enough donors to meet her party’s standard for participation in its first debate later this month. She’s still short of the 65,000-donor mark, a population not much larger than that of little Dubuque, here at the intersection of Iowa, Illinois and Wisconsin. So what on earth is she still running for?...
“When Gillibrand, like her colleagues Amy Klobuchar and Cory Booker, started getting ready to run for president they didn’t know a lot of the things now shaping the race. They didn’t know that Joe Biden really was that popular among black voters. They didn’t know that seven senators would be running. They didn’t know that Democrats would go gaga for the 37-year-old mayor of the fourth largest city in Indiana. These are not people who got to where they are by being squeamish or for lack of ego or ambition, so what do you expect them to do except slog on.” (Chris Stirewalt, Fox News)
