GOP Congressman Bob Turner announced his intentions to join the field against New York Senator Kirsten Gillibrand today, setting up a potentially interesting competition should he succeed in securing the Republican nomination.
“I will travel to the Republican State Convention in Rochester later this week and humbly ask for the Republican nomination for the United States Senate,” Mr. Turner said in a statement. “I will respectfully ask for the Conservative nomination a few days later at that Party’s convention. I have made my intentions known to the other Republican candidates in this race.”
“There is serious work to be done to get this economy back on track, and I will not walk away from that work now. I will run for the Senate, and I will run to win,” he added.
Mr. Turner, of course, won in an upset special election last summer when then-Congressman Anthony Weiner suddenly resigned.
However, Mr. Turner quickly found himself without a clear reelection scenario as the court-drawn congressional map divided his district up between neighboring, heavily Democratic, districts.
He joins Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, attorney Wendy Long, and hedge-fund manager Joe Carvin in seeking the Republican nomination.
Defeating Ms. Gillibrand will be no easy task. She currently has $10 million in her campaign account and won reelection in 2010 by twenty points.
