Washington Post: “Gillibrand overhauled her political identity during this period, abandoning the conservative positions that made her popular upstate and embracing or even moving further left than the liberal consensus on guns, immigration, Wall Street and same-sex marriage. As the Democratic Party itself moved left, she staked out positions popular with the party’s swelling base of liberals, a posture most evident when she called for abolishing the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. She has voted against President Trump’s agenda more than any other senator.”

“Gillibrand’s evolution seemed to reach its apex last week when she introduced herself as a candidate for president and a fighter for liberal values. But her shift in views from a decade ago is already raising questions among Democrats and provoking attacks from Republicans eager to define her as a flip-flopper.”

“Experts who have followed Gillibrand’s rise said the impression that she has hair-trigger judgment and an overriding instinct to capi­tal­ize on the political moment could prove more problematic than any one shift on policy.”

“Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand on Saturday signaled to a group of about 20 influential women that she will run for president,” BuzzFeed News reports.

“Gillibrand made her intentions clear, said the source, who asked not to be identified to speak about the event. Gillibrand said that she needed their help if they would offer it to her. The closed-door gathering was attended by feminist Gloria Steinem.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) “has hired a communications director for an expected presidential campaign, a sign that she is all but certain to join the race against President Trump and that her entry may be imminent,” the New York Times reports.

“Ms. Gillibrand has recruited Meredith Kelly, formerly the top spokeswoman at the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, as a senior aide to her prospective 2020 campaign… Ms. Kelly was part of the team at the House committee that helped the party capture the majority in 2018, overseeing the group’s media strategy during the midterm elections.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) is looking at Troy, New York, as a potential base for a 2020 presidential bid, the AP reports.

“Gillibrand’s team eyeing Troy, which is 150 miles north of Manhattan, is the strongest signal yet that the New York senator will soon enter the presidential race.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) “has personally been working the phones and calling senior executives at Wall Street firms in recent weeks to see whether they would back her campaign if she jumps into the race,” CNBC reports.

Politico: “Today, nearly a year after Gillibrand led the charge in calling for Franken’s resignation, the anger is fresh on the minds of major donors across the country.”

“More than a dozen prominent West Coast, New York and national donors and bundlers — many of them women — said they would never again donate to or fundraise for Gillibrand or would only do so if she ended up as the Democratic presidential nominee.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) gave her strongest public indication yet that she was contemplating a run for president in 2020, telling the late-night show host Stephen Colbert she would “give it a long, hard thought of consideration,” the New York Times reports.

Said Gillibrand: “I’ve seen the hatred and the division that President Trump has put out into our country, and it has called me to fight as hard as I possibly can to restore the moral compass of this country.”

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) vowed that she will not mount a challenge against President Trump in the next general election if she wins her midterm race next month, the New York Daily News reports.

Said Gillibrand: “I will serve my six-year term.”

New York Times: “While Ms. Gillibrand has made her name and reputation on fighting for women’s issues, especially around sexual assault and harassment — ‘60 Minutes’ favorably branded her ‘The #MeToo Senator’ earlier this year — she has spent recent months injecting her portfolio with a dose of the kind of economic populism that infused Senator Bernie Sanders’s campaign in the 2016 presidential primary.”

”She was among the first this year to endorse a federal jobs guarantee that is newly in vogue on the left. She was the first senator to introduce legislation to require that every post office in the country offer retail banking services in an effort to curb the predatory payday loan industry. She has announced a push to provide training to help those who lose their jobs to automation, embraced legalizing marijuana, pushed to tax drug companies for prescription drug price hikes, backed the Wall Street tax and announced that she would reject all future corporate political action committee money.”

Said Gillibrand: “Labels are hard. But I’m comfortable with ‘populist.’”

Washington Post: “A Democrat hoping to run for president might have a strategy of tacking noticeably to the left — in an attempt to grab the attention and enthusiasm of the progressive activists most likely to work for her and vote in the primaries. And Gillibrand has been doing precisely that. She was the first senator to call for Al Franken (D-MN) to step down, has been criticizing Bill Clinton’s failure to resign over allegations of inappropriate sexual conduct, and was an early supporter of Sen. Bernie Sanders’s ‘Medicare for all’ bill. Earlier in December, she called on President Trump to resign over numerous credible allegations of sexual harassment and abuse, to which Trump responded with an insult- and insinuation-laden tweet reaction.”

“But wait, there’s more — several actions piquing the interest of party activists. In Illinois, Gillibrand endorsed a progressive challenger to incumbent Democratic Rep. Daniel Lipinski — even before the challenger, Marie Newman, had filed petitions to run. Gillibrand has also taken notably progressive stands in the Senate. Along with Sanders (I-VT) and only four other Democrats, Gillibrand voted against the massive annual defense bill. And she unveiled a plan with Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH) to ban states from passing ‘right-to-work’ laws, which enable workers in unionized shops to refuse to pay dues, a major conservative priority.”