David Malpass, a former Reagan administration official, will form a full committee (not just an exploratory) seeking the Republican nomination to challenge Kirsten Gillibrand in this fall's Senate race.

A former deputy assistant treasury secretary for President Ronald Reagan and deputy assistant secretary of state for President George H. W. Bush, Malpass is the founder and president of the research and consulting firm Encima Global and writes the "Current Events" column for Forbes. Before that, he was chief economist for Bear Stearns.

Malpass spent most of last week in the capital meeting with the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Club for Growth. He has already started putting together a campaign team, hiring Nicholas Lence O'Reilly Strategies and Jamestown Associates, a New Jersey-based firm which worked most recently with on the gubernatorial campaign of Chris Christie.