Potential Candidates: Sen. Diane Savino

The following is the first part of a series on potential candidates for this Congressional seat. Currently only one candidate has declared, Steve Harrison.


Diane Savino is a State Senator representing the 23rd Sentate District covering the north shore of Staten Island as well as portions of Brooklyn including Borough Park, Coney Island, Bensonhurst, and Sunset Park. Her senate district is overlapped on the congressional district (green below);



From her State Senate bio;

An active member of her local labor union, the Social Service Employees Union, Local 371, DC 37 of AFSCME, she quickly rose through the ranks to become the Vice President for Political Action & Legislative Affairs, where she became one of the most respected labor leaders in New York State.

Sen. Savino was first elected to State Senate in 2004 and won re-election in 2006. She is up for re-election this November.

2004
Diane Savino (D, WFP): 63%
Al Curtis (R, I, C): 37%

2006
Diane Savino (D, I, WFP): 99%
no opponent

Why she could be the nominee
As noted above she has great ties to the labor community. In 2004 the Democratic nominee Frank Barbaro was able to raise $187,000 of his $425,000 from union contributions. She should be able to easily match Barbaro's financial success.

Savino was an Executive Board member for Working Families Party. WFP has been instrumental in providing very strong ground operations in two high profile State Senate races, Craig Johnson and Darrel Aubertine. I often noted before Fossella's latest ethics problem that involvement by WFP would be critical in flipping this seat. She has the strongest connection of any of the candidates to WFP.

The DCCC has been apparently dropping her name as someone of interest. As far back as 2005 the DCCC had been trying to recruit her.


Why she might not be the nominee
A victory for Savino would put a state senate seat up for grabs in a year Democrats possibly are going to flip the Senate. She also is co-chair of the New York State Democratic Senate Campaign Committee and in charge of recruitment. Certainly the New York State Party would not be supportive of her giving up this seat and she would give up all of her work towards reclaiming a majority.

Diane has up until this point publicly supported Domenic Recchia. Recchia would need to most likely drop out before Savino would enter.

She would start a congressional campaign with no money. [updated]

up next: Assembly member Cusick