Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) on Wednesday pressed Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) to remain a Democrat, as the influence of the party’s moderate faction in Washington is increasingly challenged by socialists and progressives. 

Fetterman is viewed as a centrist maverick lawmaker more in line with Schumer’s establishment take on policies than with socialists and progressives in the Democratic Party, whose voices are growing louder in Congress and across the country. As tensions escalate between the factions, the Pennsylvania senator has recently suggested he could be open to leaving his home party, a move that would further weaken the establishment coalition in the Senate, led by Schumer.