Democrats Just Won the Senate, and Bernie Sanders Already Wants Chuck Schumer Out as Leader

One week after Democrats won control of the Senate, the man who led them there is already fighting to keep his own job. On Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont walked into a Capitol news conference and said it out loud: he will not vote for Chuck Schumer to be the Democratic leader in the new Congress.

“I personally have known Chuck Schumer for over 30 years, and I like Chuck. Nobody works harder than Chuck Schumer,” Sanders said. “But in my view, the time is now for change, and I will not be supporting Chuck to be re-elected as the Democratic leader.” Later that afternoon he put it more bluntly on his own account: “The Democratic Party needs a new and bold direction.”

Standing right next to him was Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, a former CIA analyst who sits in the party’s moderate lane, about as far from Bernie’s democratic socialism as you can get inside one caucus. When the left wing and the centrist wing show up at the same podium to say the same thing about the same man, that’s not a stray grumble. That’s a problem.

Bernie and the ex-CIA analyst, same podium

Slotkin was careful not to slam the door all the way. “I am not actively seeking this job. I am seeking change,” she said, according to NBC News. “Whoever wants my vote is going to have to show me a concrete plan that’s definitively different. I’m a no until and unless I see that from anyone.”

Her price list is specific. She wants a plan for the first 100 days “to put money in people’s pockets,” a louder voice for the newly elected senators, and a change in how the party talks to voters in “blue states, purple states and red states,” as The Washington Sun reported. She even floated a tactic most voters have never heard of: if only one name ends up on the ballot and nobody has made those promises, senators could refuse to show up, denying the caucus the minimum number of members it needs to hold the vote.

Sanders wants something else. He’s pushing for a bigger fight on health care and income inequality and an open debate over the war in Iran and American military aid to Israel. So the two critics agree Schumer should go and agree on almost nothing about what comes next.

Schumer counts his votes

Schumer isn’t sweating, at least not in public. Minutes after Sanders and Slotkin finished, he held his own news conference a floor below with Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand, Sheldon Whitehouse and Ruben Gallego at his side. “I’m confident I will be elected majority leader,” he said. “We have great unity in our caucus, and I’ll be proud to lead it as majority leader.”

He has a case. Schumer has led Senate Democrats since 2017, and NBC reports his party picked up at least seven seats last week, with Mississippi and Alaska still counting. He and Gillibrand ran the recruiting and the fundraising that built the new majority. Aides told Punchbowl News he has already lined up enough commitments to win.

There’s a catch, though. The vote, set for Dec. 1, is a secret ballot, and it takes only a simple majority of the caucus. Senators can smile at Schumer in the hallway and vote against him in the room. One Democratic senator who backs him admitted as much to Punchbowl: “I’m voting for Chuck. Unfortunately, we’re living in a world where even saying something as simple as that would put a target on my back.”

If backing the guy who just delivered your majority feels risky, the base isn’t happy with him. Schumer has been unpopular with grassroots Democrats for years, and one good election night didn’t fix that.

The new class gets a vote before it gets a desk

The twist is who gets to vote. Senators-elect who won’t be sworn in until January still cast ballots in the December party election. That hands real power to people who haven’t taken office yet, and several of them are already against Schumer.

Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed says he’ll back Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen. Troy Jackson of Maine, Adam Hamilton of Kansas and Juliana Stratton of Illinois have said flatly they won’t support Schumer, according to MS NOW. Peggy Flanagan and South Carolina’s Annie Andrews have called for a new generation. Texas’s James Talarico hasn’t committed. On the other side, Sherrod Brown, who is returning to the Senate from Ohio, says he’s with Schumer.

A few sitting senators are hedging too. Raphael Warnock of Georgia and Martin Heinrich of New Mexico won’t publicly commit, Punchbowl reports, and Virginia’s Mark Warner, fresh off a fourth-term win, told The Virginia Scope the leadership team should “reflect in leadership the real talents” of the incoming class.

Van Hollen keeps dialing

The only name floated as a real challenger is Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat most conservatives remember for flying to El Salvador last year to plead the case of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Salvadoran illegal alien the Trump administration had deported. He hasn’t announced anything. What he has done is pick up the phone.

“I am in the process right now of calling my colleagues because ultimately the question is whether the caucus is hearing the same calls for change or not,” Van Hollen told MS NOW at a progressive event Tuesday. “There was also clearly an anti-Washington establishment tone to this election.” He told reporters at the Capitol, “We should not have a coronation.” He also says he’s been playing phone tag with Schumer himself.

So far Van Hollen is the guy everyone points to and nobody endorses, Sanders and Slotkin included. Schumer’s allies are openly telling him not to run, Politico reports, warning it could split the caucus right as it takes power.

Conservatives should care about this for more than the popcorn. The person who wins this fight sets the Senate’s agenda for the last two years of Trump’s term: which bills reach the floor, how fast Trump’s nominees move, and how hard the new majority leans into the investigations Democrats are already promising. A Schumer who has to buy off his left flank to survive would be a tougher, angrier Schumer for John Thune and Senate Republicans to deal with.

Senate Democrats meet behind closed doors on Dec. 1. Until then, Schumer has 20 days to keep every quiet promise he’s collected, and Van Hollen has 20 days to decide whether he really wants the fight.