Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer deliberately plunged the country into a government shutdown in an effort to improve his standing with his party’s far-left flank and score political points against Republicans amid Democrats’ faltering poll numbers, analysts and GOP lawmakers told the Daily Caller News Foundation.
Schumer led Democrats in blocking a GOP spending bill to fund the government on Tuesday, triggering a funding lapse Wednesday at 12:01 a.m. The lead Democrats’ decision to embrace a politically risky shutdown comes as his favorability rating is underwater with Democratic voters and there is mounting speculation whether he will face primary or leadership challenges in the future.
“I don’t think I’ve seen a shutdown that’s more purely political,” Republican Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy told reporters outside the Senate chamber on Tuesday. “I think the way Senator Schumer approached this is: ‘Let me see, if I leave the government open — I did that once — and I got knocked into a new zip code by the socialist wing of my party. I know if I do it again, I’m going to get knocked into a new zip code twice.”
“‘On the other hand, I can shut it down. I may get knocked into a new zip code, but I may win.’ So it’s a certainty and a maybe — and I think that’s his political calculus,” Kennedy added.
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When asked about whether Schumer might be risking an indefinite government shutdown in an attempt to appease his far-left critics, such as Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, GOP strategist Mike McKenna replied “absolutely.”
“Why else would they be so anxious to pick a fight that they know they can’t win?” McKenna said. “The best possible outcome for the [Democrats] is a draw.”
“Eventually, Sen. Schumer is going to have to break with his own crazies. Obviously, he has decided now is not that moment,” McKenna continued.
Senate Republicans echoed a similar sentiment on Tuesday, arguing that it was not Schumer but the party’s left-wing flank demanding a shutdown to fight Trump.
“I expect to see a shutdown because Schumer’s left-wing demands it,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso, the second-ranking Senate Republican, told the DCNF Tuesday. “He’s bowing down, as he has been after this, to Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren and to Bernie Sanders.”
A Pew Research Center survey released Tuesday found that Schumer had the highest unfavorable ratings among congressional leaders. Schumer also has a net favorability rating of -4 percentage points with just 35% of Americans who characterize themselves as “lean Dem” or “Dem” approving of the minority leader, according to the pollster.
Schumer’s lackluster poll numbers has fueled talk of Ocasio-Cortez mounting a primary challenge against the lead Democrat when he is up for reelection in 2028. Ocasio-Cortez, 35, is positioning herself to make a run for the seat or for president, Axios first reported.
A growing number of Democratic candidates running for Senate have also declined to back Schumer for his leadership role. Their desire to create distance with Schumer is likely due to his unpopularity with the party’s base voters.
Though Schumer has voiced optimism that Republicans will shoulder the blame for a shutdown, a prolonged funding lapse carries risks that further weaken his standing in his party.
Democrats have not articulated how they plan to end a shutdown if GOP leaders and Trump continue balking at their demands. Moreover, divisions within the Senate Democratic Caucus came into focus late Tuesday evening, when several Democrats voted with Republicans to avert a shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune needs to convince just five additional Senate Democrats to cross party lines and fund the government.
James P. Pinkerton, alumnus of the Reagan and George H.W. Bush White House domestic policy offices, told the DCNF that Schumer has likely miscalculated his leverage going into the shutdown fight — and he is likely to fold with none of his demands met in the end.
“I’ve been watching, and sometimes participating in, government shutdowns since my time in the Reagan Administration,” Pinkerton said. “Shutdowns result when one side is driven by an ideological belief not suited to the actual power equation.”
“As a result, that side ‘misprices’ its leverage and deploys its assets mistakenly,” Pinkerton continued. “The result: High hopes, followed by stunned shock, followed by deep disillusion. In this instance, the scenario describes the Democrats. Outrage is not a strategy. [Office of Management and Budget (OMB) Director] Russ Vought wants this.”
Schumer struggled to explain the results of a survey from The New York Times published Tuesday which found that more than six in ten Americans do not want Democrats to shut down if all of their policy “demands are not met.”
“I don’t always believe The New York Times,” Schumer said on the Senate floor. “You can be sure of that.”
The politics of a shutdown could grow more unfavorable to Schumer over time with Republicans expected to highlight warnings from members of his own party warning about the disastrous effects of a prolonged funding lapse.
“They are desperate to manufacture any strategy to try to weaken Congressional Republicans,” Tom Basile, a Daily Caller contributor and host of Newsmax’s “America Right Now,” told the DCNF. “The left is also betting on the media and social algorithms to favor their blame game and attacks on both Trump and the GOP.”
Basile also cautioned that Schumer is making a big mistake with potentially long-term consequences by focusing all of his attention on catering to the party’s base rather than working to expand the Democrats’ appeal among a wider bloc of voters.
Just 30% of voters have a favorable view of the Democratic Party, according to a recent Quinnipiac University survey. The figure is the lowest favorability rating for the party since the pollster began asking the question in 2008.
“Democrats’ problem isn’t their base, but the fact that their positions are widely unpopular with the broader electorate,” Basile reflected. “They ran a base election in 2024 and lost badly. Their challenge is that it’s hard to broaden appeal when you’re tirelessly attacking ICE, defending illegal immigration, and opposing fighting crime in the inner cities.”
Andi Shae Napier, Caden Olson and Harold Hutchison contributed to this report.
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