Voters have four choices for the U.S. Senate elections this November: a popular incumbent, a lawyer, a civil-rights activist and an oral surgeon as a write-in candidate.
The incumbent is Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, a Democrat. She faces Republican candidate Wendy Long, a Manhattan lawyer; Green Party candidate Colia Clark, who was involved in the 1960s civil rights movement; and oral surgeon Dr. Scott Noren, who is mounting an independent, write-in campaign.
Democrats now control the Senate by a slim majority. The Senate has 51 Democrats, 47 Republicans and two independents. Of the Senate’s 100 seats, 33 are up for election this year.
Election Day is Nov. 6.
In voter enrollment, Gillibrand enjoys a two-to-one advantage over the Republicans. As of April 1, the state had 10,516,779 registered voters. Of those, about 48 percent were Democrats, about 25 percent were Republicans, and less than 1 percent were Green Party voters, according to the New York State Board of Elections enrollment data.
Here are snapshots of the four candidates:
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (incumbent, Democrat)
Gillibrand was appointed to the U.S. Senate seat to succeed Hillary Rodham Clinton when Clinton became secretary of state in 2009. She won a special election in 2010 to finish Clinton’s term. This year, she is looking to win the seat for her first full six-year term.
Gillibrand and her campaign did not respond to three interview requests.
Creating jobs in New York is the No.1 priority for Gillibrand, according to her campaign website. She has supported government grants to small and medium companies to help them update their manufacturing to more strongly compete in the global economy. Gillibrand also advocates for transparency in government. For example, she publishes her official meetings on her congressional schedule.
In the Senate, Gillibrand serves on the Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry Committee; the Armed Services Committee; the Environment and Public Works Committee; and the Special Committee on Aging.
In her re-election bid, her endorsements include Planned Parenthood, Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and 20 New York Democrats in Congress, according to Gillibrand’s website.
Wendy Long (challenger, Republican)
Long has a political resume going back to the Reagan administration.
During Ronald Reagan’s presidency, she was as a press secretary for then-Sens. Gordon Humphrey, R-N.H., and Bill Armstrong, R-Colo. She also worked as a law clerk for Judge Ralph of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit and for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Long also practiced law at the law firm of Kirkland and Ellis. But she left private practice and became chief counsel of the Judicial Confirmation, now known as the Judicial Crisis Network. It is a conservative nonprofit organization that advocates for conservative nominees to be confirmed to Supreme Court.
Long and her campaign did not respond to four interview requests.
On her campaign website, Long calls for limited government. She sharply criticizes what she calls “intolerable” practices by current politicians, including such federal spending as the Obama administration’s economic stimulus package that has contributed to the $16 trillion national debt.
She has said in some interviews that she wants to cut government regulations, lower taxes and create jobs. But she does not specify solutions to make changes.
Long is a member of Mitt Romney’s Justice Advisory Committee and a member of the New York City Parks Mounted Auxiliary Unit, which patrols city parks on horseback.
Colia Clark (challenger, Green)
Clark ran for the U.S. Senate in 2010. She received 42,341, or 0.9 percent, of the votes during that election.
In her 2012 campaign, Clark’s platform emphasizes what she calls “universal rights” to education, health care and voting. She advocates for free public education for the first four years of college, she said in an interview.
“All students from the time you enter day care to the time you enter four years of college must be guaranteed a universal education,” she said. She opposes spending tax dollars on charter schools.
Without an educated, healthy population that is guaranteed the right to vote, Clark said, there can be no national security.
Clark also casts herself as an candidate with an international perspective, citing her experience working on peace campaigns in Haiti. In 1965, she said, she was the founder of Mothers on the Move Chicago. And, she said, she has been coordinator of the Union to End Slums Movement for Near West Side Chicago and a coordinator of Poor Women Against the Vietnam War.
Scott Noren (challenger, write-in independent)
Noren is an oral and maxillofacial surgeon in Ithaca, N.Y. This is second attempt to challenge Gillibrand without a party’s backing.
Noren is a registered Democrat. But he is running as an independent candidate without party support. He was unable to get enough signatures to appear on the ballot. He plans to run as a write-in candidate, he said in an interview.
Jeff Stonecash, a political scientist at Syracuse University, said in an email response for this story that it is impossible for Noren to win.
“A write-in candidate,” wrote Stonecash, “has no chance at all.”
(Laurence Léveillé is a senior majoring in newspaper journalism.)
-30-
