New York U.S. Senate- Race of the Day

52 Days Until Election Day

New York U.S. Senate

Status: Democrat Incumbent
2016 Presidential Result: Blue State (East)

Outlook: Safe Democrat

There is not a whole lot to analyze as far as the Empire State's Senate race is concerned. New York leans heavily towards Democrats in federal races, and Republicans will be on the defensive for several key U.S. House races, as they hope to hold on to their majority. The Senate race will mostly be an afterthought.

In 2009, Kirsten Gillibrand, an upstate Congresswoman from a politically prominent family was appointed to fill Hillary Clinton's U.S. Senate vacancy. Many on the left grumbled she was not progressive enough to represent the entire state, and within short order, Gillibrand moved distinctly to the left on issues such as gun control. Her 2010 special election victory was never in doubt and her race for a full term in 2012 was a rout.

This year is expected to be no different. Like the case in 2012, Republicans have nominated a female candidate from the New York City area. Neither side faced any sort of nomination battle this cycle. The GOP candidate is Chele Farley (or as she might sometimes be referred, Chele Chiavacci Farley), which allows her to appeal to both Irish-Americans and Italian-Americans once very much a part of the state's Republican Party success. Farley is a Goldman Sachs alum who is now a private equity executive who served as finance chair for the local GOP in NYC. After this race, one can perhaps see Farley getting some "talking head" spots on the Fox News Channel.

A main point of Farley's campaign will be that Gillibrand is neglecting state issues for national political ambitions. Indeed, Gillibrand is one of literally dozens of Democrats (several of whom are from New York) who are considered potential 2020 Presidential candidates. Gillibrand does seem interested in this possibility as she has traveled around the country to raise money and campaign for other Democrats, most of them female. In the past couple of years, Gillibrand, who now has a very liberal Senate voting record, has taken to publicly dropping some "f bombs" in her rhetoric. She might have backed off this a bit though after some claims that it was a contrived stunt designed to "act" like Donald Trump and time will tell if she might return to that particular strategy.

New Yorkers seem to like the idea though of their politicians perhaps having Oval Office ambitions and it is unlikely that voters this year will hold anything along those lines against the incumbent. The blonde has the hefty advantage over the brunette in this race, and then Gillibrand will have a big decision to make.

U.S. Senate races predicted thus far: 
16 D (8 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)
  6 R (2 Safe, 1 Likely, 3 Tossup)

Total with predictions thus far:
39 D (23 holdovers, 8 Safe, 3 Likely, 2 Leans, 3 Tossup)
48 R (42 holdovers, 2 Safe, 1 Likely, 3 Tossup)