Dem
47
GOP
53
As we noted over the weekend, there were 10 Democrats who voted to invoke cloture on the "continuing resolution" (CR) meant to keep the government operating. That group included Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who has (naturally) become the face of the "let's not filibuster" Senate Democrats, and so a target of much Democratic rage.
Schumer is a veteran politician, and every bit the equal of his longtime foe Mitch McConnell (R-KY) when it comes to political skill. Do you know what Schumer's record in elections is, on the many occasions he's appeared on a ballot? He's 20-0. You don't put up a record like that without having a very big, and very effectively utilized, bag of tricks.
That said, he clearly mishandled the CR situation. Specifically, it could not be more obvious that he expected Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) to come up short, thus letting the Senate off the hook. When Johnson pulled off a semi-miracle, aided by some aggressive whipping from Donald Trump, Schumer was left with an unexpected ball in his court. He and his team had done no messaging to massage voters' perceptions of the situation, and by the time Johnson sent his bill over to the upper chamber, it was too late to start. Schumer flailed around thereafter, first announcing that he'd back a filibuster, then changing his mind 24 hours later. It is not often that a politico with Schumer's vast experience appears so amateurish.
And now, the Minority Leader is paying the price. He's got a new book out, one that would seem to be rather timely, called Antisemitism in America: A Warning. However, given that Schumer is currently persona non grata with many of his potential readers, the various bookselling sites are getting overrun with "reviews" like this one:
Just delivered today, and I immediately realized it had no spine. Just a sad pile of pages barely holding together. The second I applied even the slightest pressure, it completely fell apart. Very fragile and certainly not to be relied on under any sort of harsh conditions. Refuses to stand up no matter what I do.
Schumer was supposed to go on a book tour this week, to help sell the book. However, despite the fact that the events were pre-ticketed, and the questions that the Senator was going to answer were pre-screened, he postponed due to "security concerns." Maybe there really were security concerns, but we suspect that at least part of the reason for the postponement was that Schumer didn't want photos and videos of protesters crashing the events.
With his week pretty wide open, and still with a book to promote, Schumer has undertaken a media tour. He sat for a long interview with The New York Times, one (unwisely) accompanied by a bunch of glamour shots. Whoever thought the animation of Schumer ripping off his librarian glasses in action-star fashion was a good idea should be fired immediately. And the 1,000+ comments on the piece are overwhelmingly just savage.
Yesterday, Schumer did TV hits with The View and CBS Mornings. Those didn't work out any better. On the former program, the women hosts grilled him. "Why? What were you thinking? And, why?" asked Whoopi Goldberg. Sunny Hostin added: "It gives me no pleasure to say this to you because we are friends, but I think you caved. I think you and nine other Democrats caved. I don't think you showed the fight that this party needs right now because you're playing by a rulebook, where the other party has thrown the rulebook away." And on CBS, Gayle King declared: "There are people in your own party that are saying 'look, it's time for you to go.' They no longer trust your leadership. They want somebody else in there."
Schumer has also mounted a partial, hastily organized, listening tour with lefty groups like Indivisible. He is not having success on this front, either. His specific goal was to convince the lefties NOT to lobby for his ouster as minority leader; one participant in the Indivisible meeting described the conversation as "tense and unproductive."
And finally, while Schumer's own caucus is holding firm behind him, the caucus on the other side of the Capitol is not. Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have sort of made nice in the past couple of days, but only sort of, and beyond that, Jeffries has little choice but to screw on a smile and act as if all is well. Jeffries' predecessor, and mentor, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) is rather less constrained, and she tore Schumer a new one yesterday, remarking: "I myself don't give away anything for nothing. I think that's what happened the other day."
Rank-and-file House Democrats are being no kinder to Schumer. Said one member: "His popularity is hovering somewhere between Elon Musk and the Ebola virus." Another said that Democrats need to "sit down and take a look and decide whether or not Chuck Schumer is the one to lead in this moment." And there is a serious movement underway to draft Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to challenge Schumer in his next primary (in 2028).
It is still considerably more likely than not that Schumer will keep his position for the remainder of the 119th Congress. As we have noted before, the barriers to booting a party leader in the Senate are significant, such that it's never happened before. But, the odds are getting pretty good that Schumer, like McConnell before him, will be put out to pasture (well, put out to the back benches) at the start of the 120th Congress. Schumer does not have obvious health problems, like McConnell does, and the Minority Leader is also about a decade younger. But they are both products of a different era in American politics, and are seen (probably rightly) as out-of-step with the current era.
We think the odds of an AOC challenge to Schumer in 2028 are also pretty good. She's ambitious, there's not a lot more she can accomplish in the House, and if she doesn't take a shot then, her next chance probably won't come until the latter half of the 2030s (it is not likely that Kirsten Gillibrand will retire, or that AOC would want to try to unseat her). Plus, AOC got her current job by taking down an old-white-guy incumbent who had fallen out of step with his party, so she's got relevant experience here. And remember, in 2016, some old white guy nobody had ever heard of from a state up north with only three electoral votes decided to challenge the preordained Democratic nominee, Hillary Clinton. He didn't pull it off, but he sure scared the daylights out of her. (Z)