Sen. Gillibrand Formally Announces Presidential Campaign

Washington DC.- Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) formally launched her presidential campaign on March 17, with an announcement in a video posted on Twitter.

The message concludes with an invitation to her kickoff campaign speech in front of Trump International tower in New York City on March 24.

Most of the senator’s kickoff video targets President Donald Trump. The suggestively edited footage casts a negative light on the president that largely aligns with the attacks on him by establishment media outlets.

In the video, the senator from New York embraces several socialist policy proposals, including universal health care and the Green New Deal. Gillibrand has co-sponsored both the Green New Deal resolution and the “Medicare for All” legislation in Congress, which are fervently promoted by both the Communist Party USA and the Democratic Socialists of America, the largest socialist group in the United States.

“We launched ourselves into space and landed on the moon. If we can do that, we can definitely achieve universal health care,” Gillibrand said in the video. “We can provide paid family leave for all, end gun violence, pass a Green New Deal, get money out of politics, and take back our democracy.”

Gillibrand already has been campaigning in key states that hold early Democratic primary contests. In an average of public opinion polls tallied by Real Clear Politics, she has earned less than 1 percent support, far behind socialist Sen. Bernard Sanders (I-Vt.), who is polling at 22 percent. Former Vice President Joe Biden is leading in the polls with 29 percent, but hasn’t yet announced his candidacy.

Gillibrand was more fiscally conservative as a member of the House of Representatives, but her positions shifted far to the left since she was appointed to fill the Senate seat vacated by Hillary Clinton, who became President Barack Obama’s secretary of state. In key Senate votes in 2018, Gillibrand voted in favor of economic freedom 29 percent of the time, according to a scorecard maintained by FreedomWorks. Sanders received the same 29 percent rating.

Gillibrand then won the seat in a special election and was re-elected to six-year terms in 2012 and 2018. She has attributed the ideology shift to representing a liberal state versus a more conservative district.

Gillibrand joins a crowded field of Democratic contenders. Former Rep. Robert “Beto” O’Rourke (D-Texas) announced his bid days before Gillibrand.