Gillibrand, a Democrat, deflected.

“As I said then, I was solely focused on winning our midterms, creating transparency and accountability over this White House,” Gillibrand said Wednesday.

“I continue to fight for New Yorkers as I’ve always done,” said Gillibrand, the state’s junior senator, emphasizing her plans to challenge President Donald Trump. “But I believe the urgency of this moment now is we have to take on President Trump and what he is doing.”

Gillibrand has won little support in early polls, but she is a formidable fundraiser who has long been talked about as a presidential contender.

Her first day on the trail, at a diner just a few miles from her home, offered a mix of the achievements she is likely to rely on and the challenges she will face — and the often inextricable links between the two — as she seeks to distinguish herself in what is sure to be a dense field of Democratic hopefuls.

One of Gillibrand’s signature causes, for example, is her work fighting sexual harassment, and she emphasized her admiration for female leaders on Wednesday. But that work has also inspired some of her fiercest critics, in people who saw her calls for the resignation of the former Sen. Al Franken — he was accused by eight women of sexual harassment — as self-interested posturing.

Gillibrand, 52, has also emphasized her independence from special interests. But both Democrats and Republicans have tarred her as an opportunist who shed her support from Wall Street and the National Rifle Association when it suited her ambitions.

“Look at my heart,” Gillibrand said when asked about her evolving stances. “I think it’s important to know when you’re wrong, and to do what’s right.”

Gillibrand also said for the first time that she was uninterested in having a political action committee devoted to her bid. “I don’t think we should have individual super PACs, and I don’t want one,” she said.

On Franken, Gillibrand — who pushed for anti-harassment legislation years before the #MeToo movement gained widespread attention in 2017 — brushed off reports that donors were rejecting her bid because of her denunciation of him.

“It’s sad for many people,” she said of Franken’s fall. But “my job was not to stay silent. If some wealthy individuals, that makes them angry, that’s on them.”

Gillibrand’s remarks were virtually identical to those she gave Tuesday on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert,” when she declared her candidacy.

She called herself a “young mom” who would fight for other people’s children, and who believed in the need to combat institutional racism and the moneyed drug and insurance companies.

“This is going to be a very different campaign,” Gillibrand said Wednesday, “Because we’re willing to take on those systems of power that do not want Americans to have that opportunity.”

Those promises are also favorite talking points of Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., who has also announced her intention to run for president and has carved out space as an enemy of the financial industry. Asked what would make her candidacy different from other Democrats’, Gillibrand emphasized her background as an upstate lawmaker — her campaign headquarters will be in Troy — who had won broad support across the state in previous campaigns.

The reception for Gillibrand at the diner was warm, with longtime friends and neighbors eating in nearby booths. (Before Gillibrand’s appearance, two men eating at the counter declined to speak to a reporter, saying they were Republicans; they left by the time she sat down.)

Patricia Carley, 68, and Christine Fronhofer, 45, said they had moved their breakfast there specifically to meet Gillibrand.

Fronhofer, a stay-at-home mother, said she was excited that Gillibrand could bring a mother’s perspective to the presidency.

For others, Gillibrand’s shifting promises — whether on guns or on her plans to run for president — were disqualifying.

“How do you know?” said Stephen Purificato, 57, an independent sales representative. “She was for gun rights in the state and now she backs the governor to take our gun rights away.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.