Sanders has tried to offset this by stressing his Brooklyn upbringing, although his appeal probably comes from his populist focus on income inequality, Rothenberg said.
“He’ll do well in Ithaca and other places with universities,” Rothenberg said. “But if she gets another big African-American showing and holds onto Democratic women and Democratic regulars, she’ll do fine.”
Days after Sept. 11, Clinton and Charles Schumer, New York’s senior senator, along with House members, won a promise from Bush to provide more than $20 billion to redevelop the World Trade Center and Lower Manhattan’s financial district. She chaired the first Senate hearing probing the health of survivors, which buttressed a drive to create a fund for victims and first responders, many of whom developed chronic illnesses from toxic smoke and debris.
In June 2002, the Senate passed a measure she co-sponsored that requires the government to compensate insurers for much of the losses incurred from terrorist attacks. And in 2004, Clinton won amendments that provided $50 million for nonprofits and community groups at risk of terrorist threats and $570 million to protect New York’s trains and tunnels.
Her news releases touted $400,000 for St. Joseph’s College in Brooklyn and $900,000 for the endangered Oak Beach Park on the Long Island’s south shore in 2004. In 2005, she and Schumer announced they had secured $1.4 billion for Amtrak.
Between 2008 and 2009 Clinton secured 292 appropriations “earmarked” to benefit New Yorkers totaling $351 million, ranking 13th among her colleagues, according to Citizens Against Government Waste in Washington, a group advocating small government.
Former Republican U.S. Representative James T. Walsh, who represented the Syracuse region from 1989 to 2009, says Clinton won friends among his constituents promoting upstate farm produce in New York City and on Capitol Hill with an annual New York Farm Day.
“She was big on apples, big on wine,” said Walsh, now a Washington lobbyist with K&L Gates. “She combined upstate agriculture and downstate palates.”