Chuck Schumer can rest easy this weekend, as the New Yorker wraps up the week safe and sound in his position as leader of the Senate Democrats.
This was bound to be the case, despite the noise, the canceled book tour, and even the embarrassing damage control of the past two weeks. It’s the same reason Mitch McConnell stayed in charge of the Republican Senate conference as long as he did, despite grumbling colleagues and broad, national unpopularity: a complete and total lack of opposing momentum.
The Ides of March may have passed Schumer by, but in the streets, the knives are still very much out.
None of this, however, means Schumer can relax. Danger from within his party still lurks on the horizon.
But first, the Senate. Sir Isaac Newton’s first law of physics instructs that an object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by some outside force. And while radicals like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-N.Y.) can rage on TV and at rallies all they like, you can barely hear them inside the thick marble walls of the upper legislative chamber.
Republicans grumbled under McConnell’s leadership for years. Everyone knew he was out of touch with the base, had a contentious relationship with his conservative colleagues, and year after year ranked among the least popular politicians in the country. So what? The question of replacing him was one of logistics, momentum, internal support, retaliation, and huge amounts of money.
When leadership is decided by secret ballot among only a few dozen powerful people, serious questions arise. Chief among them: If not Mitch McConnell, then who?
Several senators had eyes on the throne, among them John Cornyn (R-Texas) and the current majority leader, John Thune (R-S.D.), but they had gotten to where they were through loyalty to McConnell. How would they stand against him before the time was just right?
Then there was Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), who chafed under the Senate’s slow, directionless drift and ran against McConnell demanding actual change. Where was his support? How much money did he control and use to prop up his political allies (and starve his internal enemies)? He had a few vocal ideological allies who were willing to publicly back him, but much of the struggle came down to money, power, and simple apathy. Scott never stood a chance.
It took Mitch McConnell to finally remove Mitch McConnell from leadership. His allies stood by him until last year, when a series of troubling and highly public medical episodes shook their confidence. Even then, the old man set the terms of his surrender. When he announced his decision to step down, he made it clear he wouldn’t leave for another nine months.
The timelines frustrated his conservative foes, but there could be heard a collective sigh of relief from those other Republicans whose participation in the push to overthrow him had been necessary to move it to this point. They didn’t want a battle. Look at that messy fight after Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was deposed. They don’t do that sort of thing in the Senate.
Inside the Senate, Democrats’ resistance to Schumer isn’t nearly as far along as Republican resistance was to McConnell last winter.
Take even the radical and “independent” Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), for example. He’s been touring the country with Ocasio-Cortez, slamming the Democratic establishment, and the crowds have been caught on tape chanting for AOC to primary Schumer. Yet when asked over the weekend about his friend joining him in the Senate, Sanders angrily stormed out of the interview. If even he won’t speak out, who would?
And exactly who would replace Schumer atop the Democratic Senate were he to be deposed? Dick Durbin? What makes the senator from Illinois any different from the man from New York, aside from the chaos and intraparty violence that would be needed to put him in place? Sure, similar critiques were leveled at both Thune and Cornyn during the Republican leadership race, but that election was a bloodless matter of pure succession.
That’s why D.C. has largely moved on. Politico’s Thursday newsletter, for example, devoted 1,178 words to whether Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth was somehow responsible for the national security adviser adding a hostile journalist to his Signal chat. By contrast, Schumer’s troubles received 83 words. There’s just no there there.
Of course, the world outside his hallowed chamber is less restrained by the niceties of collegiality, and the Democratic base is clearly unrestrained by fear of change or disruption. A primary could pose a real problem for the five-term senator.
Then again, don’t underestimate a man who’s never lost an election. More than a decade before McConnell stepped down from leadership, for example, he was challenged in the primary by Matt Bevin. Despite national base attention, McConnell cleaned his clock, winning by nearly 25 points.
This wasn’t because Bevin was weak in the state. The next year, after eking out a win in a four-way primary, Bevin unexpectedly trounced his Democratic opponent for governor, relying on heavy turnout from traditionally Republican districts. Rather, McConnell won through the strength of his machine and the novelty of his challenger.
AOC might be a different animal, however. Remember: She first came to power in New York by knocking out Rep. Joe Crowley, a member of the Democratic House leadership and a close ally of Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.). AOC beat him by more than 13 points, despite being outspent by the incumbent.
The Democratic base is where the energy against Schumer is really coming from, and while the Sanderses of the world might not see a clean route to replacing him in leadership, they could be tempted to want Ocasio-Cortez as a colleague in 2028.
The Ides of March may have passed Schumer by, but in the streets, the knives are still very much out.
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