Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is taking a more strategic approach with his government strategy this time around, closely coordinating with liberal groups.
Schumer was criticized earlier this year for giving in during a government shutdown standoff against President Donald Trump and the Republicans. He took the criticism to heart, surrounding himself with the same liberal groups in planning his most recent shutdown gamble.
Several liberal groups, including unions, the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, and MoveOn, told Axios they had met with Schumer and his team weekly over the past two months. All have stressed that a repeat of his March caving would be unacceptable.
The progressive Democratic groups involved have welcomed the change in dynamics.
“There has been more proactive communication from leadership to me, I would just call it the outside ecosystem,” MoveOn chief communications officer Joel Payne told the outlet. “The battle lines that the grassroots of the party is drawing for the grasstops leadership is, hey, you got to be willing to fight.”
Others took on a much different tone, sounding more threatening. One source familiar with the conversations told Axios that some groups have been using planned No Kings protests next month to their advantage.
“You can either be a part of this movement or be irrelevant to it,” the source said they told Schumer’s team.
The liberal group Progress Action Fund told Axios that it’s paying six figures for an ad buy pushing Schumer to stand his ground in the government funding battle.
Schumer is being set up for a daunting task, as some in his caucus are already reportedly getting cold feet. The White House’s threats to lay off thousands of federal workers in retaliation for a government shutdown are leading some Democrats to consider breaking ranks, said Democratic sources familiar with the matter, according to The Hill.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH) is leading the effort, putting out feelers to Republicans to see if a deal can be reached outside Schumer’s maximalist aims.
“I’m not going to draw a line in the sand and say it’s got to be this way or that way,” she said.
One Senate Democrat, Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), already seems to have openly defected on the issue.
DEMOCRATS DECRY WHITE HOUSE LAYOFF THREAT AS ‘INTIMIDATION’ AHEAD OF SHUTDOWN DEADLINE
“We must keep our government open,” he told Fox News. “If we shut our government down, you know, the kinds of chaos and the kinds of loss for the millions of Americans that count on that directly, it’s just not the appropriate time for that, especially after the [Charlie] Kirk assassination.”
Schumer’s accommodation of his left flank reflects a strategy he used in 2022, working with the progressive Democrat Sunrise Movement to ward off a potential progressive challenger. Alarm bells were rung in Schumer’s camp in March, when polls showed Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) beating the incumbent senator in a hypothetical 2028 match.
