Congress

Chuck Schumer is ready for redemption

Published

2 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

Scalise will kick off August campaign sprint in marquee Nebraska House race

Published

6 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise is zeroing in on one of House Republicans’ biggest contests — a purple district in Nebraska — when he starts his recess campaign sprint.

Scalise will travel to Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District in the Omaha area for an event with Republican Brinker Harding in the coming days, according to a person with direct knowledge of the matter granted anonymity to share plans not yet made public. Republicans are digging in to defend the seat, which Kamala Harris won in the 2024 presidential race and is among Democrats’ best pick up opportunities this fall as they seek to flip the House.

Harding is running against Democratic consultant Denise Powell to replace retiring GOP Rep. Don Bacon. Bacon, a moderate-leaning Republican, flipped the Omaha district red in 2016.

After Nebraska, Scalise is planning to travel across the country throughout August, including to defend GOP incumbents Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ and Zach Nunn’s key battleground seats in Iowa’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts and Derrick Van Orden in Wisconsin’s 3rd Congressional District.

He’ll boost candidates working to flip blue districts like Laurie Buckhout in North Carolina’s 1st Congressional District, Derek Merrin in Ohio’s 9th Congressional District and Mike LiPetri in New York’s 3rd Congressional District.

Scalise also plans to travel to Michigan, Colorado, South Carolina and Texas for campaign events over the August recess.

Congress

Trump needles Cornyn as Blanche remains blocked

Published

10 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

President Donald Trump goaded John Cornyn on social media Friday morning, accusing the Texas senator of withholding his vote on Todd Blanche’s attorney general nomination in retaliation for Trump’s central role in his political demise.

Cornyn, who lost his May primary to Texas’ scandal-ridden attorney general, the Trump-endorsed Ken Paxton, has threatened to block Blanche’s nomination in the Senate Judiciary Committee until the White House promises to permanently shelve its $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization fund” in writing — something Trump appears unwilling to do.

“John Cornyn never had a problem with the so called “Fund,” which will not benefit me, but rather the great American Patriots who were hunted down like dogs and whose lives were unfairly and illegally destroyed by the Crooked Joe Biden Administration, until after I decided to Endorse and Support his Republican Primary opponent in Texas, who easily won the Nomination for the United States Senate,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Several Republicans bristled at the fund, which could have been deployed to compensate Americans who faced charges after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot and which gives the president and his family audit immunity over taxes. At his July confirmation hearing, Blanche said that the fund, part of a settlement the president reached with the IRS, was defunct. But the administration has been “reluctant to change” the text of the settlement, Cornyn told reporters Thursday.

Trump signaled his continued support for the Jan 6 rioters on Friday.

“I will always feel that these victims of government abuse should be paid back for what they were forced to endure, their lives have been ruined!” he wrote. “Millions of people agree with me, as was proven in my landslide Presidential win, where this was a major subject of debate, and so did John Cornyn, until he lost his Election to an opponent that I Endorsed.”

On Thursday, the president suggested that he could punt a Senate vote on Blanche until after Cornyn — and Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) — leaves the chamber at the end of the year. Cornyn, however, suggested on social media that there are other Republican senators with concerns about the fund.

“After the midterms, who knows who’s going to be the next United States senator from North Carolina or Texas?” Cornyn told reporters.

Congress

Capitol agenda: The Senate’s fly-out agenda takes shape

Published

11 hours ago

July 31, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Senate Republicans are prepping a jam-packed — if somewhat optimistic — agenda for their final week before summer recess.

Majority Leader John Thune wants to move stopgap funding through Dec. 11, bipartisan Russia sanctions legislation and a bloc of nominees — perhaps including attorney general pick Todd Blanche.

He’s also under pressure from President Donald Trump, administration officials and many of his GOP colleagues to adopt a budget resolution — the first step in unlocking another party-line spending bill.

Leaders are prioritizing the stopgap, though. Appropriations Chair Susan Collins (R-Maine) expects continuing resolution text to be unveiled later today, she told reporters Thursday, and an initial vote is expected Monday evening.

Still TBD: Collins wants to use the funding patch to block the Trump administration from putting political appointees in charge of approving grants — a demand Democratic senators are also making.

The decision is in Thune’s hands. He acknowledged a “handful of issues” are still under consideration with the CR, and said he’s “hoping both sides can come together and figure” them out.

As for the sanctions bill, leaders of both parties are still trying to work out a deal to fast-track the legislation amid concerns from some Democrats and Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) that it gives Trump too much tariff power.

In addition to the nominees package, Thune also hasn’t ruled out an initial vote on the landmark cryptocurrency bill both parties have spent months negotiating or teeing up a bipartisan college sports overhaul now in final stages of talks.

But the big question is whether Republicans can take a major step toward another reconciliation bill by advancing a budget resolution.

Thune met Thursday with Budget Chair Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who said he was “optimistic in terms of how things are kind of coming together.”

Republicans anticipate giving a number of Senate committees instructions for the bill, setting up a lengthy and politically painful process ahead of adoption despite pushes for urgency from the White House.

Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles, was the latest official to head to Capitol Hill to try and light a fire under top Republicans. But GOP senators don’t necessarily see the urgency.

“The hard part is the president wants to be able to move fast, like an executive can move, and we’re a legislative branch,” said Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.). “It doesn’t move that fast.”

What else we’re watching:

— BLANCHE TEETERING: Todd Blanche’s nomination as attorney general isn’t dead yet. But it’s certainly on life support. The acting AG met with Cornyn and Tillis Thursday at NRSC headquarters, and one person familiar with the discussion said the group was “working collaboratively now.” But it would now be difficult to confirm him before August recess under Senate rules.

— FARM BILL TEXT: Senate Agriculture Chair John Boozman said his farm bill legislative text — originally expected Thursday — could come Friday or Saturday. The bill, which is expected to include language allowing year-round E15 sales and a potential compromise on postponing GOP-led cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, is set to be marked up Thursday.

Jordain Carney and Grace Yarrow contributed to this report.