ALBANY – Jeanine Pirro’s record on social issues emerged yesterday as a potentially significant obstacle in the veteran prosecutor’s drive to garner multiparty support against two less known but more conservative challengers in next year’s U.S. Senate race against Senator Clinton.

Some political observers have said Mrs. Pirro, a telegenic district attorney from Westchester County who said this week she will run against Mrs. Clinton, will be burdened most heavily in the race by her husband, Albert, a Republican lobbyist who served 11 months of a 29-month sentence in federal prison for felonious tax fraud four years ago.

But it is Mrs. Pirro’s positions on abortion, gay marriage, gun control, and other contentious social issues that have caused the most friction since her announcement was made. Some onlookers said her position on those issues could make next year’s election as much a referendum on state Republicans as a battle for Mrs. Clinton’s office.

“Elections aren’t just about who can win and who can lose,” the chairman of the state’s Conservative Party, Michael Long, said. “Elections are about having a vision and promoting a system of beliefs. I think the Republicans are walking down a road toward their own destruction if they endorse a candidate who supports those issues.”

The procedure known as partial birth abortion, the support of which Mr. Long described as a “deal-breaker,” took center stage yesterday. Mrs. Pirro’s handlers insisted their candidate’s position on the issue remained unknown, even after the abortion rights group NARAL Pro-Choice America produced a questionnaire from 2001 in which Mrs. Pirro said she opposed legislative efforts to limit the procedure.

“She will articulate her positions tomorrow at her announcement,” Michael McKeon, one of Mrs. Pirro’s campaign managers, said when asked about her position on the issue. Mrs. Pirro has scheduled an official campaign announcement in a three-city statewide tour today. Mr. McKeon would not say whether Mrs. Pirro could be expected to back away from the questionnaire, nor would he say whether she would seek Conservative Party backing.

“We’re going to have a conversation with Mike Long and respect his party and their process,” Mr. McKeon said. “We look forward to a conversation with the Conservative Party.”

On other hot-button issues, such as gay marriage, Mrs. Pirro appears to lack a paper trail. In a statement accompanying her announcement to run, she cast herself as conservative on fiscal policy and defense, but liberal on social issues. She did not say on which social issues, other than abortion, she could be expected to side with the Democrats.

The chairman of the Republican State Committee, Stephen Minarik, an early supporter of Mrs. Pirro’s in the race against Mrs. Clinton, defended his candidate against the charge that she is too liberal to earn his party’s nomination.

“There is nobody tougher on crime in the country than Jeanine Pirro, and that’s conservative,” Mr. Minarik said. “She’s also a fiscal conservative, and as the campaign continues, I’m sure Jeanine will articulate her position on all the issues.”

Yet Mrs. Pirro’s two Republican opponents in the bid for the party’s 2006 Senate nomination cast doubt on her ability to motivate the GOP base, despite her glamorous looks and tough demeanor, with one potential candidate predicting a primary fight next year.

“There is going to be a primary if the Republican Party puts forward a woman who is as liberal as Hillary Clinton,” a former mayor of Yonkers, John Spencer, said. “As a proud conservative, I’m not going to lay down for these crazy liberals. I know to win New York you have to put up a conservative.”

A spokesman for the other announced opponent of Mrs. Pirro in the pursuit of the Republican and Conservative Party endorsement, Edward Cox, said the Manhattan lawyer is the only candidate capable of uniting the Conservative and Republican parties going into next year’s race.

“We are confident that in the end the chairmen of the Republican and Conservative parties will come to the conclusion that Ed Cox is the best qualified candidate,” the spokesman, Thomas Basile, said. “Ed Cox is the only candidate capable of uniting the Republican and Conservative parties.”

Mr. Basile downplayed a June letter from 46 of 62 Republican county chairmen urging Mrs. Pirro to run against Mrs. Clinton. He said Mr. Cox has been working to convince some of the signatories to change their minds. He also criticized the press for hyping Mrs. Pirro, out of what he said was their desire for a matchup between the women.

“There are a lot of people who have said for a long time they would like to see a catfight because it would make good political theater,” Mr. Basile said. “But what makes for good political theater is not necessarily what’s going to be best for the Republican Party of the people of the state of New York.”