An Impending Democratic Senate Revolt?
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Troy Jackson is refusing to support Chuck Schumer as the Democratic Senate leader, should he defeat Susan Collins. This is almost certainly good politics in Maine. Schumer really own-goaled himself with Janet Mills as his chosen Senate choice there. For a lot of people it felt undemocratic and for even more people, it felt completely out of touch for what voters there want in 2026. Thus, Maine voters chose a guy with a Nazi tattoo and sketchy history with women over the woman they had elected governor twice. And no, Pod Save America had nothing to do with why Graham Platner became the nominee, let’s stop overstating the role of the media around these parts. They made those choices quite knowingly.
The larger question is whether there’s an incipient rebellion beginning to boil over within the Democratic caucus toward Schumer. I tend to think the answer is mostly no, or at least it’s not very far along. But it was things like Senate candidates refusing to support moderate Republicans that played a big role in moving that overall caucus to the right (which has not led to it being more effective, since the ultimate goal there is to just roll over for King Donald). And Schumer’s candidates haven’t done bad so far–he got Sherrod Brown, he got Mary Peltola, he clearly preferred Talarico to Jasmine Crockett, etc.
But we are all pretty clear now that not only is Schumer not a wartime consigliere, he’s not a peacetime one either. He’s in many ways a man from the past, where corporate interests and AIPAC ruled the Democratic Party. Schumer is closely tied to both and is complete out of sorts in not only dealing with Trump but in dealing with the Democratic Party base.
Still, someone else would have to want to do the job of herding these cats. I do believe there are people who could do it, but don’t ask me who has those skills. Slick media appearances are a part of the job and so you might see someone like Brian Schatz as a possibility here, but there’s a lot of behind the scenes work that is at least as important that you and I don’t see. I do figure that real strong support for Schumer is decreasing all the time. I am sure that the Tim Kaines and Mark Warners of the world are probably on board but that era of Democrat is going away.
But can you see Schumer leading the Democratic caucus, as Majority or Minority Leader, in, say, 2031? Good lord I hope not.