UNDER PRESSURE

Harold Ford Won't Challenge Gillibrand

Says he could have beat her, though.

Harold Ford, the former Tennessee congressman who had flirted with a bid against Senator Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), has decided not to run, The New York Times reports. The financial executive was facing pressure from Democratic leaders to back off Gillibrand, who is the protégé of the powerful Senator Chuck Schumer. Ford told friends that he thought he could beat Gillibrand in the Democratic primary but would then emerge without enough money to win the race if a moneyed Republican challenger emerged. He also mentioned he didn’t want to jeopardize the slim Democratic majority in the Senate. Ford burst on to the scene with an interview with the Times in which he said he got daily pedicures and had visited some boroughs of New York only by helicopter.