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Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand says she will apply the lessons learned from the 2024 elections and other recent cycles as she works to win back the Senate majority for the Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections.

"If we've learned anything in the last few cycles, if you're not in the field early, talking to voters about what they're worried about, what’s their kitchen table issues, and then coming up with legislative solutions to help them, they're not going to feel that you have their back. And so it's about a relationship with your voters," the new chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee told Fox News Digital in a recent interview.

Gillibrand, the longtime senator from New York who was re-elected in November, was named on Monday by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, a fellow New Yorker, to steer the Senate Democrats' campaign committee in the 2026 cycle.

"Electing more Democrats to the Senate in 2026 is the most important thing we can do to limit the damage of Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans and do more for working families," Schumer argued in a statement. "I have worked side by side with Kirsten Gillibrand for nearly two decades and I know she will be an outstanding DSCC Chair. With her hard work, tenacity, and discipline, Sen. Gillibrand is the right person to lead our campaign to victory in 2026."

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Gillibrand pledged in a statement to "work my hardest to support our Democratic incumbents, recruit the strongest possible candidates, and ensure they have every resource needed to win. I am confident that we will protect our Democratic seats, mount strong challenges in our battleground races, and look to expand our efforts into some unexpected states."

The senator, as she looked ahead to her new mission to win back the Senate majority or at the least, cut into the GOP's newly won 53-47 control of the chamber, pointed in her Fox News Digital interview to her own re-election and her efforts to help House Democrats flip Republican-controlled seats in the 2024 cycle.

"I made sure that for my race and for the House races in New York that our candidates were in the community talking to voters two years before the election, talking to them about what mattered to them. People were concerned about crime; they were concerned about immigration. They were concerned about fentanyl and gun trafficking. They were also concerned about the economy and the cost of food, the cost of housing," she said.

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Gillibrand emphasized that "we really did the outreach and engagement that you really need to do in this day and age to make sure you're talking about the things that voters want you to be working on."

Additionally, she said that Democrats can learn from President-elect Donald Trump's 2024 White House victory.

"President-elect Trump is a formidable candidate. He showed in this last election that he was able to win over voters in states across this country, not just red states," Gillibrand noted. "I think it's important to learn the lessons of last cycle."

Senate Democrats faced an extremely difficult map in the 2024 cycle as they lost control of the majority. An early read of the 2026 map shows they will continue to play defense in some states, but also offers opportunities to go on offense.

Among them is the southeastern battleground state of North Carolina.

"There's a number of places where Democrats can win if they have the right candidate in the community early enough talking about the issues that voters care about. A state like North Carolina might be one where we got very close last time.," Gillibrand said.

There is plenty of speculation that former Gov. Roy Cooper, who just finished steering the state for two terms, may make a bid for the Senate against Republican incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis.

"There are some really remarkably good candidates in North Carolina, considering the former governor would be one of them. That's the kind of state I'm going to be looking at around the country, states where Democrats have won in the past, where they might be able to win again if they have a candidate that really resonates and does the hard work of engaging voters early," Gillibrand said.

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Another potential pickup opportunity for Gillibrand may be blue-leaning Maine, where moderate Republican Susan Collins is up for re-election in 2026.

"Susan is quite tough to beat," Gillibrand acknowledged. But she added that "if we get a great candidate there, that's a race where we will be competitive."

The 2026 map also gives Republicans opportunities to flip Democrat-controlled seats.

In swing state New Hampshire, longtime Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, who's taking over as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, is up for re-election.

Sen. Gary Peters, who steered the DSCC in the 2022 and 2024 cycles, is up for re-election in battleground Michigan. So is first-term Sen. Jon Ossoff in swing state Georgia.

"The great thing about Jean Shaheen is she is in her community every week, talking to people about the things she works on, on their behalf. She's common sense, she's bipartisan, and so I'm optimistic we will hold her seat," Gillibrand said. "I'm also optimistic about making sure Gary Peters holds his seat in Michigan. Again, he's extremely bipartisan. He's constantly working on behalf of the voters of Michigan to make sure they understand that he fights for them. The same is true, I'd say for Jon Ossoff. He hit the ground running as a new senator last term, and I think he really does resonate with Georgia voters."

• Alma Rex-Ezonfade spent over a year saving up $51,300 to take an "adult gap year."
• She initially found it difficult to do nothing but learned to enjoy herself and explore new hobbies.
• She launched her own clothing brand, is applying to 9-to-5 jobs, and plans to take more sabbaticals.

Editor's note: This list was first published in May 2024 and most recently updated on January 2, 2025.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with 31-year-old Alma Rex-Ezonfade based in Toronto, Canada. The following has been edited for length and clarity.

On my 29th birthday, I opened a savings account and put $500 in it. I had told myself that for my 30th birthday, I would gift myself a one-year sabbatical, and this was my first step in making that dream of taking an "adult gap year" a reality.

I was tired of working and always being on top of things. I immigrated to Canada from Nigeria when I was 22 for my master's degree and started working right after graduating. It felt like I had been running on a hamster wheel, and I was just going, going, going, going.

I calculated my budget for the year

Before taking my gap year, I was a customer success manager at Astreya making around 110,000 CAD ($80,500) and a content creator. Between my 9-to-5 salary and my income from working with brands and doing campaigns, I was making nearly 200,000 CAD ($146,600) a year.

I calculated how much I actually needed to save based on my spending at the time.

For necessities like rent, car payments, groceries, gas, my phone bill, and utilities, I estimated around 4,200 CAD ($3,100) a month. I also decided I wanted to travel, which I knew would be a bit pricey because I'm not a budget traveler. I planned for 18,000 CAD ($13,200) for two big trips and a number of smaller ones.

Altogether, I calculated that I would need to save around 70,000 CAD ($51,300) for my sabbatical, which I did by putting most of my content creator income into my sabbatical fund. If I didn't have my job as a content creator, I would've picked up a part-time job to generate that supplemental income.

I also cut back on expenses. I was never too shy to say "I can't afford that" or "I can't do that activity," because I was planning for something that had way higher priority than going out and spending $200 in one night.

I left my job but struggled to not do anything

Saving up took me a little longer than I had planned, but I quit my job in April 2023.

The day I quit, I just spent the whole day at home, watching the TV blankly. I didn't do anything else; I just needed my brain to shut off.

On Monday, I woke up at 8 a.m. as usual because I forgot that I didn't have a job. Then I remembered I could sleep in, but I was already awake, so I tried to figure out my new routine.

I started to put together a plan, and then I realized that would just defeat the whole purpose. The plan was to let go.

Still, I didn't feel like I could just not do anything. I found myself planning for my upcoming trips, brainstorming content ideas for my YouTube channel, and posting more regularly on my Instagram page. I had thought about starting my own clothing brand for years, so I started working on ideas for that too.

One of my friends said to me, "The whole point was for you to not work. Why can't you not work?"

The week after I quit, I checked myself into a hotel for a couple of days, ordered room service, and cried the entire time. My tears were tears of gratitude, tears of exhaustion, tears of relief. I was letting myself feel like, "Okay, I did it and I'm here."

I was used to being a high performer, managing a team, having deliverables, and doing all these things. I had to get used to the idea of not working and get over feeling like I wasn't useful because I wasn't being productive. I had to shift to having my validation come from my own happiness and seeing my value beyond my work output.

Three weeks into my sabbatical, one of my former bosses reached out to me to tell me about a contract role at Google that she wanted me to interview for. Honestly, I almost took it, because I wasn't used to the idea of not having work.

It took some getting used to, but eventually, I was able to go a whole week without doing any work.

Did I make the right decision?

The first few months when I was on sabbatical, I was so sad.

I looked at all the money that I had put in my sabbatical account and thought of everything else that I could have done with that money rather than lounge for a whole year.

Maybe I should just take it out and buy a house, I thought. I even asked my real-estate agent friend to look up properties for me, but I knew that if I bought the house instead, I'd be miserable, always wondering what I could've achieved if I just took the year off.

I remember talking to my therapist and trying to validate the decision time after time. At the end of the day, I realized that I was at the best point of my life to give this gift to myself. A few months in, once I settled on that, I started to have fun with the idea that I was on a sabbatical.

I learned to enjoy myself

I enjoyed having the luxury of time to do whatever I wanted.

I fell in love with working out again. I started coloring, drawing, and doing ceramics. I started reading again and got back into writing. I spent more time with myself and with my family. I picked up childhood hobbies again, like building Legos and taking Polaroid photos. I also cooked more and tried new coffee spots in Toronto.

Some of my favorite memories from my sabbatical are the many days I spent just sitting on my couch watching TV and only getting up to eat. I finished all six seasons of "Downton Abbey" in one week. I also watched all of "Schitt's Creek" and a lot of Korean shows.

Working on my clothing brand became a passion project. I learned about fabrics and the fashion industry — I enjoyed just learning things for the sake of learning.

I visited friends and family in other countries, did some birthday trips with friends, went on a seven-day cruise to the Caribbean, and spent four weeks traveling Europe.

I launched my own clothing brand and am looking at full-time roles

In May, after a full year of my sabbatical, my sabbatical funds were almost fully drained, and my income as a content creator was keeping me afloat. I thought I'd be panicking about my finances, but taking the time off helped me develop a mindset shift; I knew I'd figure it out one way or another. I was the most broke I'd ever been, but I'd never been happier.

That month, I launched my fashion brand, which has been doing well. I've been focused on running and growing it full-time, and in the near future, I hope to hire a team to take over the day-to-day tasks. In the meantime, I've been financially relying on savings and my content creator income, including several brand deals.

I've always been open to returning to a 9-5 workplace after my gap year, and I've been applying to roles that allow me to leverage my skills as a customer success manager, an entrepreneur, and a creative. I plan to continue running my clothing brand full-time as well.

I plan to take many more sabbaticals

I'm very happy with my path. I just feel kind of sad that I had to take a whole year off of work to find joy in my life.

One of the biggest things I'm taking away from this sabbatical is realizing that a lot of things are not that serious. When you're an immigrant, a lot of things are that serious; I had to start life over again in Canada and I had to excel at this life. But I just kept going and going and going, and I realized that I needed to enjoy life.

I'd absolutely do a sabbatical again. My loved ones have pointed out that I'm less grumpy, I shout less, and I'm less controlling. My plan is to work in a corporate job for another three years to get more experience and knowledge, take another year off at 35, and repeat that cycle until I retire.

My sabbatical was really about redefining what happiness looks like at different points in my life. I needed time away to de-stress and prioritize the things I thought were important, and now, I'm going back with a fresher outlook on my professional career and personal life goals.

If you took a sabbatical and would like to share your story, email Jane Zhang at [email protected].

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., who is looking to head up the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC) for the 2026 cycle, thinks Democrats waited too long to address the current immigration crisis. 

In an interview with Fox News Digital, the senator said, "For me, it would have been great if we could have gotten these commonsense, bipartisan ideas on the table two years ago, like really, a while ago, because the urgency has been very top of mind for certain communities in New York."

One of the top takeaways drawn from data from the Fox News Digital Voter Analysis after the 2024 election was that immigration was one of the biggest issues in the country. When voters were asked about reducing the number of immigrants allowed to seek asylum, twice as many favored reducing the number of immigrants allowed to do so.

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Democrats made their own case for addressing it, citing a border and immigration bill that was negotiated by a Republican senator, a Democrat senator and an independent border state senator. However, by the bill's last appearance on the Senate floor, two of its three negotiators had abandoned it. Only one Republican chose to vote in favor of the measure.

On the campaign trail, Democrats pointed to this bill and their attempt to pass it when confronting concerns about the border, often criticizing their Republican colleagues and President-elect Donald Trump for standing against it. 

Gillibrand said immigration worries were some of the top concerns brought to her attention by voters.

"They wanted to make sure their kids were safe. So issues like immigration and fentanyl trafficking and gun trafficking were really important to them," she said.

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This and the economy and cost of living, "were really more salient," the senator said, reflecting on 2024 and how to win in red or purple areas comprised of swing voters.

When asked about abortion messaging in 2026, Gillibrand didn't say what she would do in the 2026 cycle if she was selected to lead the DSCC, but she said that "people really wanted to talk about the cost of things" in this cycle. 

Whether identity politics played a role in Democrat losses and if the party should veer away from it, she didn't agree with some of her fellow Democrats. 

"I think it was leaned in by Republican candidates to divide America, which I found to be really unfortunate," she said.

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To fight those efforts, Gillibrand said, "I think you just say it like it is. I mean, just be truthful about it. And, you know, on a lot of those issues, a lot of our state governments already take care of it."

The New York senator said that even though the 2024 election occurred just weeks ago, the 2026 Senate cycle "really starts today."

She said she wants to lead the DSCC so she can "help other candidates across the country to be in their community, not two months before the election but two years before the election, talking to voters about what they care most about."

Notably, Gillibrand flipped a red House district to blue when she was first elected in 2006, unseating an incumbent.

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Though the senator hasn't officially been selected to take on the challenge of running the Democrat campaign arm yet, she is already eyeing some competitive candidates. In particular, Gillibrand said she thinks Democrat North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper would be a good candidate to try and flip a Senate seat to blue in the state.

"I haven't talked to him yet, but he's pretty impressive," she said. 

The Senate seat in North Carolina is held by incumbent Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C.

Gillibrand also noted that the Senate majority may not be something Democrats can earn back in 2026, telling Fox News Digital, "Sometimes it takes time to win back majorities, and it may take two cycles."

"I just know there's great races across the country and great candidates that, hopefully, I'll be part of recruiting, and hopefully we can win our majority back."