The ‘Schumer Shutdown’ has ended, marking a significant political blunder for Senator Chuck Schumer amidst growing criticism over his strategy and potential 2028 primary challenges from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Theshutdown concluded just in time for the 250th anniversary of the United States Marine Corps and Veterans Day, yet it left a lasting political scar on Schumer and the Democratic Party.
While some votes remain to be cast and logistical cleanup is ongoing, the failure of this record-setting shutdown is now cemented in political history. The Senate Democrats who ultimately voted to reopen the government, including Sens. Catherine Cortez Masto, Jacky Rosen, Dick Durbin, John Fetterman, Maggie Hassan, Jeanne Shaheen, Tim Kaine, and Independent Sen. Angus King, faced scrutiny for their roles in the shutdown, with the GOP capitalizing on the episode to frame Democrats as out of touch. Critics suggest that the shutdown was a misguided attempt by Schumer to deter a potential 2028 primary challenge from Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, an effort that has backfired spectacularly, damaging his reputation and political prospects.
Schumer’s strategy from the start was to head off a primary challenge in 2028 from Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC). New York holds its Democratic presidential primary on February 1, 2028, so I assume the Senate primary will be that day as well. Someone schooled in New York election law will have to weigh in on whether AOC can run in both, but if she does, Schumer loses the Senate nomination if we go by early polling. ‘In a hypothetical matchup for the 2028 Democratic primary for the U.S. Senate in New York, Ocasio-Cortez leads Schumer by a 19-point margin, 55% to 36%,’ according to a Data for Progress poll. It would be reasonable for New York law to allow AOC to run in both races, provided she only serves in one office come January 2028, after the general election that fall. Don’t sweat the details, though Schumer certainly will.
The collapse of his costly ‘Schumer Shutdown’ stunt will trail Schumer just as a long chain of heavy lock boxes trailed after Jacob Marley, the ghost of Ebenezer Scrooge’s dead partner in ‘The Christmas Carol’ by Charles Dickens, forever clanking along behind a dead Marley — the sum he had accumulated in his life of greed. There aren’t any ghosts, but there are political scars that don’t ever fade, and the ‘Schumer Shutdown’ is one of them. Schumer cooked up this stunt, and he’s going to have to live with it, even as the memory of his predecessor as leader of Senate Democrats, Harry Reid, will always be remembered primarily as the guy who broke the filibuster and allowed President Donald Trump to nominate and Mitch McConnell to confirm three Supreme Court justices with simple majorities after Reid established the precedent of using the nuclear option to change the Senate’s longstanding rules of confirmation.
Reid traded the filibuster for a majority of Democratic nominees on the federal Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, and got the first originalist majority on the Supreme Court in return. Schumer didn’t need a record-setting shutdown to juice turnout in last week’s elections, as the two blue states that vote in the odd year after a presidential contest went overwhelmingly Democratic, as has almost always happened. Schumer put everyone through this because he thought it might help his chances of spending another six years in elected office, something he has been doing since 1975. You read that right. Schumer has been on the taxpayer’s payroll for almost 51 years already. He’s already got three more guaranteed, but wants another six for a total of at least 60! AOC is a threat to Schumer, and he’s acting irrationally as a result. He hurt his own chances with this circus act that entertained no one. He will pay the price in 2028, if not earlier. How many Senate Democrats already realize they need a new ‘leader’ for the cycle ahead?
What a terrible choice Schumer made. Now, like former Speaker Pelosi, he will be remembered as a politician who hung around far too long. What has Schumer accomplished? The political equivalent of the Seinfeld Show: a career about nothing, just like the shutdown. But hey, it’s a living.