Congress

Chuck Schumer is ready for redemption

Published

3 months ago

June 12, 2026

Chuck Schumer has served as a punching bag for angry Democrats for more than a year — taking flak on everything from his 2026 recruiting to his handling of government funding talks.

But with about five months until the midterm elections, the Senate minority leader is gently starting to punch back — pointing out how some of his bets are paying off as his party moves within striking distance of taking back the majority in November.

“There’s no victory lap to take in June,” he said in an interview in his Capitol office suite.

But he ticked through moves he oversaw in the past year — from leading opposition to GOP safety-net cuts to picking shutdown fights over health care and immigration enforcement funding and orchestrating national intervention in several Senate primaries — that he argued have strengthened Democrats’ hand for the midterms and beyond.

“We made a lot of strategic decisions that got us to this place — it didn’t happen by accident,” Schumer said. “I knew from the beginning that if we recruited strong candidates, found paths to victory, focused on the issues the American people cared about, and forced … the Republicans, to carry Trump’s water, we’d be in much better shape, and that has happened.”

Schumer’s confidence comes after an at times rocky year for the minority leader: His decision to help advance a GOP government funding bill in March 2025 fueled a wave of calls from progressive groups and House Democrats for him to step down as Senate Democratic leader. Criticism crested again after eight members of his caucus broke from Schumer to help reopen most of the government after a record shutdown in November.

Polling has shown eroding favorability and approval ratings for Schumer — even in his home state of New York, where he has been elected to the Senate five times. He’s maintained support among the Senate Democrats who elected him leader, though some have dodged the subject of his future.

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), asked by Blue Light News at a recent event in Illinois if he expects Schumer to be leader next year, said that Schumer has a “really hard job” and that Democrats are focused on “making sure that we have a majority, and then we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Murphy is part of a self-described “fight club” of Senate Democrats that has pushed for a more aggressive approach from Schumer and the party organs he controls. Some have broken with Schumer’s favored candidates in key Senate primaries.

But the picture has improved somewhat in recent weeks. In the recent Iowa primary, Schumer got his preferred candidate in state Rep. Josh Turek, even as some progressives backed a more liberal candidate. Polling shows a highly competitive race between Turek and the GOP nominee, Rep. Ashley Hinson.

Schumer had already helped recruit blue-chip Democrats in several key races, including Ohio, Alaska and North Carolina, where he got former Sen. Sherrod Brown, former Rep. Mary Peltola and Gov. Roy Cooper, respectively, to jump in. Texas has come up on the map for Democrats, with state Rep. James Talarico matched up with scandal-plagued state Attorney General Ken Paxton.

And then there’s Maine — where Schumer’s backing of Gov. Janet Mills over populist insurgent Graham Platner further fueled grassroots disdain of the leader’s strategy. Mills ran a by-all-accounts lackluster campaign, which she suspended weeks before the primary.

But Schumer’s intervention has been cast in a new light by a series of revelations about Platner’s background, ranging from provocative online posts to a recent allegation that he was physically abusive to a former girlfriend — suggesting that party leaders may have had good reason to go with a known quantity in their latest bid to knock off veteran GOP Sen. Susan Collins.

In the interview Thursday, Schumer deflected questions about Platner, instead saying that Democrats are “going to beat Susan Collins, and we’re going to win Maine and we’re going to take back the Senate.”

He was glad to comment more broadly, however, on the change in Democrats’ political fortunes since early 2025, when Trump had just been sworn in to his second term and voter dissatisfaction with the Democratic leadership in Washington began to crescendo.

“The bottom line is, that’s my job — to help strategize the best way to go, and then unify the caucus, and I think that’s what’s happened,” he said.

Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) said in an interview that he believed conversations over Schumer’s leadership have changed since that moment after the March 2025 funding fold.

“Chuck by just virtually any objective measure – super successful majority leader in terms of legislation passed. And I think it took us all a while, including him, to [be] like, ‘We’re in the minority now,’” Kaine said. “You have different tools. … But I think he made the mental switch and has really narrowed down and focused on what kind of our case is to the American public.”

While Democrats have momentum, winning back the majority isn’t a sure bet and will require their candidates to run the table in several Trump-won states. Republicans entered the cycle with a structural advantage, having to defend relatively few competitive seats, and GOP senators believe they will still be in power come January.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters recently that he was “very confident” that Republicans “will hang on to and maybe even expand the majority in the United States Senate, which is counter, I know, to sort of the narrative these days.”

But Democrats are feeling increasingly optimistic. Kaine said at the start of 2025, he would have pegged the odds of a Democratic takeover of the Senate at 20 percent. He said he is at “45 percent now, with the arc going in the right direction.”

Democrats have long viewed their path back to the majority in 2026 as running through four states: Maine, North Carolina, Ohio and Alaska. Schumer said he believes Democrats now have “other paths,” pointing to Iowa and Texas.

But they also need to hold onto seats in Georgia, where incumbent Jon Ossoff is running a strong campaign, and in Michigan, where the picture is more unsettled and illustrative of the challenges Schumer continues to face.

National party operatives fear an unabashedly progressive candidate, Abdul el-Sayed, could emerge from a messy three-way primary and complicate Democrats’ chances at keeping retiring Sen. Gary Peters’ seat in November.

In what many interpreted as an attempt to winnow the field and box out el-Sayed, Schumer voiced this week what had been a not-very-well-kept secret — he’d prefer Rep. Haley Stevens, telling Punchbowl News “she has the best chance to win.”

But the third leading candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow saw an opportunity Thursday — attacking Schumer.

“Michiganders are sick and tired of the party putting their fingers on the scales,” she said in a social media video attacking Stevens and her national backers. “Schumer doesn’t decide — you do.”

Asked if he thought Democrats would keep Michigan no matter who emerged from the primary, Schumer instead said “we’re going to have a strong nominee who is a good fit.” And he defended his approach to recruitment and support in key races.

“We found great candidates,” Schumer said, lobbing a veiled retort at critics of his strategy. “I don’t look for candidates that fit the national Democratic Party profile.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Congress

Third Way rolls out “new economic bargain” platform for Dems

Published

1 hour ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The Democratic centrist group Third Way is launching a “new economic bargain” platform as part of its ongoing effort to steer the party toward a more coherent and big-tent vision heading into 2028.

The platform consists of what it calls 20 “ambitious and ruthlessly pragmatic” ideas, shared first with Blue Light News, targeting working-class voters. The ideas include a health care Bill of Rights, ONE MORE, and government-backed car loans to lower the cost of car ownership and forcing AI companies to pay for their own expansion without passing it on to consumers.

“Now that the primaries are over, the big question for Democrats is: What are you going to run on in the general election in ’26? What are you going to legislate on in ’27? And what are you going to promise to do and deliver if you become president?” Jon Cowan, Third Way’s president, said in an interview. “And so we see this now as the pivot moment away from the primaries and toward the policy debate in the party.”

Cowan said the policy ideas provide an affirmative vision for the party, instead of just being anti-Trump, saying the agenda is aimed at “Democrats who want to be able to beat MAGA, because here’s the key thing: you can’t beat something with nothing.”

Earlier this year, the influential think tank launched a $50 million effort seeking to make sure a “combative centrist” emerges as the party’s 2028 presidential nominee.

Now, Third Way has elevated a dedicated staffer — Sasha Galbreath, a longtime House policy adviser — to establish connections between the group and staffers for potential 2028 presidential and vice presidential candidates. The group is already in conversation with at least 16 potential candidates and their staff, according to Cowan.

“The ideas primary is really only just beginning now,” Cowan said. “I think the pivot into September and the end of the primaries is actually when the real ideas primary to determine the future of the Democratic Party begins.”

Congress

Democrats’ new data center attack line

Published

2 hours ago

September 3, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Voters are in an uproar over data centers — and Democrats are trying to direct anger toward Republicans by pointing to a tax provision buried in the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill.”

Of the myriad talking points on this issue that Democrats are preparing deploy heading into the midterms, they this week began alluding to “Opportunity Zones” — an initiative designed to boost growth in areas deemed underdeveloped and which, at one point, Republicans had touted as a way to spur the construction of data centers.

“Every single House Republican but one or two voted to unleash data centers on the American people in an unfettered fashion,” said House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries at a news conference Monday.

The next day, a senior House Democrat — Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts — made a similar observation on the chamber floor.

“A year ago, Republicans were bragging about giving tax breaks to Big Tech in order to build data centers,” McGovern said. “With November on the horizon, some House Republicans are acting as if they did not turbocharge the data center buildout.”

Republicans — and Opportunity Zone advocates — scoff, noting data centers are just one of many possible uses of a program that was never designed to support any one industry specifically.

“Huge stretch,” said House Ways and Means Chair Jason Smith (R-Mo.), who oversaw the expansion of the Opportunity Zone tax credits in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act. “Opportunity Zones control, like, everything — from child daycare centers to manufacturers. Can data centers be used in them? Yes. But so can everything else.”

But the narrative has been building steam in recent weeks, tucked inside reports from Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, the top Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, and the National Community Reinvestment Coalition. The message was further boosted Monday with social media posts from liberal policy influencers like Brendan Duke, an economist at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, and Pod Save America cohost Jon Favreau.

A Truth Social post from President Donald Trump calling for Americans to “let Data Reign” gave Democrats an opening to pounce.

Democrats’ new line of attack comes as Republicans are already grappling with a fresh dilemma: How do they respond to voter concerns about data centers driving up energy costs, when their president is publicly downplaying those worries?

The messaging tactic also arrives as Republicans are already struggling to sell voters on their 2025 tax law ahead of the midterms — and Democrats are now using data center anxiety as another way to undercut that effort.

Poll after poll show mushrooming frustrations with data centers throughout the country, including in House and Senate races necessary for the GOP to hold onto its majorities on Capitol Hill.

House Republicans were likewise hounded in their districts on data centers throughout their summer recess. Now back in Washington, they are pressing Speaker Mike Johnson on whether leadership has plans to put any data center-related legislation on the floor in the next month, but have received no commitments.

One vulnerable Republican who has found himself under scrutiny is Rep. David Valadao of California, who Jeffries called out by name at his news conference as someone who voted for the 2025 megabill that Democrats claim will give way to more data center construction.

“Is Hakeem opposed to the data centers?” Valadao asked in an interview. “Does he not think the data centers, at some point, have to be developed? Is that what he’s trying to imply, or is he just trying to make a political issue out of something that probably needs to be addressed?

“I mean, obviously there are local concerns that need to be addressed,” he continued, but added, “trying to use something that a lot of people would argue is important for national security or national security interests as a political weapon sounds pretty irresponsible.”

Smith said that “Democrats will use any issue to help empower themselves to victory. They don’t have to abide by truth. They’ll say whatever they can and they’ll mislead whatever they can. So anything Hakeem Jeffries says — if it’s coming out of his mouth, it’s probably not true.”

Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, chair of the Senate Banking Committee and the National Republican Senatorial Committee, conceived of Opportunity Zones alongside Democratic Sen. Cory Booker of New Jersey, to attract developers to hard-hit communities. The program offers breaks on capital gains taxes to those who invest in one of more than nearly 9,000 designated areas around the country.

Since the program went into effect as part of the GOP’s 2017 tax law, developers have used these incentives to build a range of projects — apartment complexes, warehouses, parking garages and hotels — largely in more populated areas, while rural areas went mostly ignored.

To address this disparity, Republicans in their 2025 megabill beefed up the tax advantages for projects in less-dense areas. As it turns out, some of these rural projects have included data centers.

Republican tax writers didn’t shy away from the byproduct. In an August 2025 press release celebrating passage of the megabill a month earlier, they quoted a Bloomberg Tax commentary piece that noted the expanded tax credits could be used for data centers.

An analysis from the National Community Reinvestment Coalition published this month figures that 14 percent of data centers are in Opportunity Zones, while 17 percent of those currently planned or being built are similarly situated. The organization, which focuses on low-income issues, also predicts that a large portion of the next batch of Opportunity Zones could be used for data centers because they are near key resources, like good sources of power.

“You’re seeing an increasing trend of [opportunity zones] being utilized to develop data centers,” Simon Wang, NCRC’s economic mobility specialist, said in an interview.

Wyden — who could reclaim the Finance Committee gavel next year if Democrats take the Senate majority in the midterms — has explicitly called for banning data centers from benefiting from Opportunity Zone incentives, saying they do little to help for the surrounding communities.

Spokespeople for Scott in his personal office and at the NRSC did not respond to requests for comment, as GOP Senate candidates in states like Michigan and Ohio face data center backlash on the campaign trail. Booker’s office also did not return a comment request.

Republicans are responding to Democratic criticism by ticking off the long list of other investments that have been made through the Opportunity Zone program. They also note the current crop of zones was established in 2018, long before the current data center boom began.

But if Democrats are able to further popularize their narrative, it could affect both data center expansions and the success of the Opportunity Zone initiative. State elected officials are currently deciding where to place the next batch of locations based on certain socioeconomic criteria — something that happens only once every decade — and many local leaders are now being aggressively lobbied on the issue.

“You can bet that the choices governors are making right now — that the data center industry is in their office saying, ‘Please pick this tract, and not that tract,’” said Brett Theodos, director of the Urban Institute’s Center for Local Finance and Growth.

Some Opportunity Zone advocates are playing up the benefits of such projects.

“Data center construction fuels demand for blue-collar jobs in construction, maintenance, and the building trades while generating substantial tax revenue to fund local services and reduce the tax burden on local residents,” said John Lettieri, president of the Economic Innovation Group and a longtime Opportunity Zone advocate, in an email. “Steering those kinds of economic benefits towards struggling communities is exactly what the policy was designed to do.”

But data center proponents could now face headwinds. Many states have begun canceling or phasing out their own tax incentives for data center construction; just last week, Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill of New Jersey signed a law ending a special data center tax credit.

Asked how data center blowback could hit Republicans in November, Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna, who represents Silicon Valley, said his party had a chance to show their alliance with data center skeptics making up large swaths of the electorate.

“Trump has made it an issue by saying that he wants data centers reigning everywhere; he’s basically saying he doesn’t care about local control, he doesn’t care about local communities,” Khanna said in an interview Wednesday. “We can be on the side of local cities, rural communities, factory towns, suburbs — places that don’t want Big Tech coming and telling them what to do.”

Andres Picon contributed to this report.

Congress

House Democrats watch closely as Hakeem Jeffries vows to rein in rogue members

Published

12 hours ago

September 2, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats have spent the better part of two years looking on in glee as House Republicans have struggled to wrangle their narrow majority and enact a consensus agenda.

Now, eyeing a potentially small majority of their own, they are eager not to see the shoe quickly land on the other foot — which is why Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is under fierce internal pressure to crack down on a surprise rebellion this week.

The decision by Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-Wash.) and Jared Golden (D-Maine) to support a Republican procedural measure that would have otherwise failed — essentially bailing out Speaker Mike Johnson’s floor agenda — prompted Jeffries and fellow Democratic leaders to decry a “breach of trust” and promise a “serious response.”

Rank-and-file members are watching closely to see if Jeffries follows through on those threats and moves to rein in rogue members who could undermine the party agenda and his own leadership.

“If there’s no understanding that we need to stay together on procedural measures, then we’re going to be like Republicans,” said Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat and a Jeffries ally. “I mean, they can’t get anything done because everybody’s going off in different directions.”

Many Democrats are hoping Jeffries will set an assertive tone and send a message that some protest tactics will not be tolerated in a future majority. The situation is of particular interest to members given the slate of insurgent hard-left members poised to join the caucus next term — some of whom have openly discussed adopting strategies embraced by the hard right.

“It’s an open secret — we don’t want to end up with our own Freedom Caucus,” one House Democrat granted anonymity to speak candidly said in an interview, referring to the fractious ultraconservative group. “You see how a core group of people can stop the workings here … when it’s continual and it’s just about grandstanding. … We don’t want that.”

“I’m not saying that those folks coming in are going to operate in that way,” the member added. “We don’t know. But we’ve got to tighten up the systems.”

Already, House Democrats have competing views about how and when to punish the rogue members. Multiple members, for example, have privately suggested kicking Gluesenkamp Perez off of the Appropriations Committee — a highly coveted assignment.

Gluesenkamp Perez represents a district President Donald Trump won in 2024.

But others acknowledge that leaders have little leverage against the duo. Golden is leaving the House at the end of this term, and Gluesenkamp Perez is one of the most vulnerable Democrats in the country.

Keeping her seat in a district President Donald Trump won by 3 percentage points in 2024 could determine the outcome of the midterm elections, and she has made her clashes with party leaders a core part of her political identity.

Some members — including progressives who used procedural votes for leverage during Nancy Pelosi’s speakership — also cautioned leadership from overpolicing members.

Asked about how Jeffries should “punish” the members, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), a former chair of the Progressive Caucus, said, “We’re not kids, and he’s not our dad.”

“I’m elected by 750,000 people. I get to make my decisions about what I want,” Jayapal said before adding, “At the same time, I think there has to be a strong commitment to the team.”

“I think that there can be certain reasonable expectations — for example, to flag how one may intend to vote on something,” Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) said. “I also think that the idea that there will be consequences depending on how that is laid out could create a slippery slope.”

Both of the rebels are shrugging off the intense reaction from Democratic leaders and some of their colleagues. Golden said he voted with Republicans to advance a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in Maine; Gluesenkamp Perez said she voted to support Golden and “people who make their livelihoods and heritage on the water.”

“I do not have a polished political strategy,” she told reporters Wednesday. “I know my community, and that’s who sent me here, and that’s who I am thinking about.”

Many of their Democratic colleagues aren’t ready to just let it go, however. Several argued in interviews that if every member broke ranks on procedural votes to advance legislation they support, the party would lose significant leverage.

Golden, left, is retiring after his term ends.

“I am generally of the view that if you believe that you are a free agent in this town, maybe you don’t get to use the team locker room anymore,” Rep. Sean Casten (D-Ill.) said, adding that he could not think of a potential punishment “within the scope of what leadership can do that could be opposed by the caucus.”

Rep. Greg Landsman (D-Ohio) said “some tough love“ might be necessary to send a message to the broader caucus: “We’re all in this together.”

Amid the agita, it’s not clear how quickly Jeffries will act. An internal committee dealing with caucus rules met Wednesday and discussed the matter but did not advance any specific proposals for sanctions or rules changes.

Jeffries himself has not committed to a timeline for imposing consequences against the two defectors. He told reporters Wednesday he wants to pursue action “sooner rather than later” as he faces internal questions about whether he can exert the same level of control over Democrats as his predecessor did.

Pelosi dealt with rebellions of her own, including moderates who repeatedly voted with Republicans to amend Democratic bills on the floor. But she pointedly commented on the disloyalty on display this week, with Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez essentially voting to advance the GOP floor agenda.

“We didn’t even consider that anybody would do that,” she said Tuesday. “We never had that problem, so I’m disappointed that they did that.”

Another lawmaker who was happy to comment Wednesday was Johnson, who has routinely contended with GOP mutinies during his time in office — including one that Gluesenkamp Perez and Golden bailed him out of Tuesday.

Jeffries “has a serious problem in his caucus,” he told reporters, citing the “warring factions in his party.”

“I don’t see a way out of that thicket,” he said. “But I’m not going to tell him how to govern his conference, and he doesn’t, or shouldn’t, be telling me how to.”