Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand launches 2020 presidential campaign

Another Democratic candidate has entered the 2020 presidential race: New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand.

Gillibrand made the announcement Tuesday that she will form an exploratory committee for a campaign in an appearance on Stephen Colbert’s self-titled show. On Wednesday, she held her first official press conference as a candidate.

The senator enters a field of candidates that is expected to get crowded soon, but she said that she is the “woman for the job.”

Gillibrand announces presidential run

The senator’s announcement comes two weeks after Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) announced that she was forming an exploratory committee, officially kicking off the Democratic race. But Gillibrand left no room for doubt about her plans.

“It’s an important first step, and it’s one I am taking because I am going to run,” she said, explaining that she would form her committee “tonight.”

The three-term senator and former House representative will enter the race with more government experience than some likely competitors, including Texas Rep. Beto O’Rourke, but she may have trouble standing out in a crowded field of names that have all tacked a more progressive bent to pander to the left.

Gillibrand rattled off a list of goals that have become progressive boilerplate, saying that she would fight for health care and better public schooling, and against “institutionalized racism,” “corruption and greed in Washington,” and the “special interests that write legislation in the dead of night” with “compassion, the courage and the fearless determination.”

Gillibrand, who is an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump — she has voted against more of his executive branch nominations than any other senator — also said that she would “restore” the “integrity and compassion of this country” on day one of her presidential tenure.

“I’m going to run for president of the United States because as a young mom, I’m going to fight for other people’s kids as hard as I would fight for my own, which is why I believe that healthcare should be a right and not a privilege. It’s why I believe we should have better public schools for a kid, because it shouldn’t matter what block you grow up on,” she told Colbert. Take a look:

Wall Street Democrat-turned-radical

Although she has been in Congress for years, Gillibrand has cultivated a more radical image in recent months that critics find disingenuous given her status as a veteran lawmaker with connections to Wall Street. Gillibrand recently touted the campus identity politics of the left in a tweet that echoed slogans that the future is “female” and “intersectional.”

“Our future is: Female, Intersectional, Powered by our belief in one another. And we’re just getting started,” wrote Gillibrand, who is also an outspoken #MeToo advocate. She played a big role in ousting former colleague Minnesota Sen. Al Franken (D) over sexual harassment allegations.

Gillibrand was also criticized recently for reaching out to Wall Street donors to see if they would back her presidential ambitions, a sign that for all her radical, anti-corruption politics, she’s still an old-school Democrat who needs corporate money. The reports put pressure on Gillibrand to defend her record.

With an exploratory committee, Gillibrand can now raise money as a candidate before officially declaring her candidacy. The senator already has begun soliciting staffers for her campaign and plans to visit the early primary state of Iowa this weekend, where a poll found that a majority of Iowans don’t have an opinion of her.

Besides Gillibrand and Warren, former Housing and Urban Development Secretary Julian Castro and Hawaii Rep. Tulsi Gabbard have also entered the race. Several Democrats including former Vice President Joe Biden, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and O’Rourke are expected to announce whether they will run soon.