Schumer Racing Toward Election Bid

Orangeburg, N.Y. – Sen. Charles Schumer (search) seems to be coasting toward an easy re-election victory, without even a clear opponent yet.

But that's not stopping him from a whirlwind campaign tour across upstate New York. It looks like the Brooklyn Democrat will spend a lot of his 20 million dollar campaign chest on gas money alone.

His hectic public schedule and the continued lack of a challenger has led some to question whether he's positioning himself for a run for governor in 2006. Schumer says he's not even thinking about it.

But a recent Marist College poll shows plenty of other people are thinking about it. Schumer leads Attorney General Eliot Spitzer (search) 54 percent to 29 percent among Democratic voters in a hypothetical matchup.

Schumer says he's trying to build a career modeled on Jacob Javits (search), the senator from New York who served four terms.