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Gillibrand reverses, openly considering 2020 run for president

U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ran on a campaign that she would finish her term but is now "thinking about" a presidential run.
www.gillibrand.senate.gov
U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand ran on a campaign that she would finish her term but is now "thinking about" a presidential run.

Two years out from a presidential election isn't stopping some Democrats from making their White House ambitions known, including New York U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, who ran on a campaign that she would finish her term.

Just days after midterm elections, Democrats are openly discussing a run against President Donald Trump. Among those considering campaigns are U.S. senators, including Gillibrand, New Jersey's Cory Booker, Ohio's Sherrod Brown and California's Kamala Harris.

"Well, I'm obviously very dedicated to serving New Yorkers, but that is a very important moral question I have been thinking about," Gillibrand told ABC-TV's "The View."

“And I've been thinking about it because, as we said earlier, what Trump has been putting into this country is so divisive, so disturbing, so dark, that I believe that I've been called to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore that moral integrity, that moral decency."

"So that sounds like a 'yes,' " asked "The View."

"So I'm thinking about it," Gillibrand responded.

The open discussion of potential White House plans so early is a switch from the past when politicians were coy about presidential ambitions. Usually advisers labored to keep meetings with donors and potential staff under wraps ahead of formal, carefully choreographed campaign announcements.

What's different ahead of the 2020 presidential election? An urgency to unseat Trump and the prospect of a historically large primary field that could easily include two dozen Democratic hopefuls.