Incoming Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., knows how to adapt.
The third consecutive Senate Democratic leader who voted for the Iraq War, a man whose ties to Wall Street have raised liberal hackles, Schumer was nevertheless elected Harry Reid’s successor without opposition.
A decade ago, Schumer helped Democrats retake the Senate by recruiting candidates who are a cultural fit with more socially conservative states. This included Bob Casey Jr., an abortion opponent, and Jim Webb, who opposed gun control and was known for politically incorrect writings.
This time, Schumer reached out to Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., and other progressives in the chamber. He also helped increase the Democratic leadership team from 7 to 10 members, despite the fact they remain in the minority. One of those additions was Sen. Bernie Sanders, who was elected as an independent and never explicitly ran as a Democrat for anything until he was surprisingly competitive with Hillary Clinton in the presidential primaries.
If Sanders’ success against the eventual Democratic primary in a number of states was the first sign Clintonite New Democrat politics were in trouble, Donald Trump’s general election win really drove the point home. Trump won six states that voted twice for Barack Obama, including Rust Belt states that hadn’t been in the GOP column since the 1980s.
The only concession to cultural conservatives on the Senate Democratic leadership team is the appointment of Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va. Trump won more than two-thirds of the vote in Manchin’s home state, a Democratic bastion until George W. Bush carried it in 2000, beating Clinton by over 42 points.
Schumer doesn’t have as far to migrate as his predecessor. Reid started out as a relatively moderate pro-life Democrat, but leaves as a fire-breathing liberal denouncing the president-elect and his controversial adviser Stephen Bannon from the Senate floor in blistering terms. Some of this reflects Reid moving up the leadership ranks and some political changes in his home state of Nevada.
Many progressive activists still haven’t forgiven Schumer for opposing President Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran (critics of the deal point out he didn’t try to swing votes to actually derail it). Some outside activists preferred Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., as Reid’s replacement.
“No real Democratic leader does this,” MoveOn.org political action executive director Ilya Sheyman protested at the time, calling on members to cut off donations to the Democrats’ Senate campaign committee. “If this is what counts as ‘leadership’ among Democrats in the Senate, Senate Democrats should be prepared to find a new leader or few followers.”
Even in the days leading up to Schumer’s office has been the site of protests. “Schumer, grow a spine, our democracy is on the line!” they cried. “Establishment Democrats failed to stop Donald Trump,” a former Sanders 2016 field organizer complained to a New York newspaper columnist.
It all came to naught, in part because Schumer balances the needs of his constituents back home with his own desire to move toward the national Democratic Party’s center of gravity.
