From Power Broker to Primary Target: Schumer’s Stunning Collapse
“This screams — sirens should be going off — primary challenge, primary challenge, primary challenge!”
Poor Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The Senate Minority Leader thought he could ride out the firestorm that erupted inside the Democratic Party following his March vote for the spending bill to avert a government shutdown. But six weeks later, his favorability ratings among Democrats have plunged to record lows, fueling speculation that he could face a serious primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — assuming she doesn’t opt to run for president instead.
On Thursday, CNN data analyst Harry Enten highlighted a Siena College poll showing Schumer’s favorability among New York Democrats has plunged to just 52% — a stunning 21-point drop since December. A very fired-up Enten called the results “almost unfathomable.”
“They simply don’t like the job he is doing as Senate [minority] leader,” Enten said, citing a new Marist University survey that asked New York Democrats whether Schumer should keep his leadership role. Fifty percent said yes, while 48% said no.
“This screams — sirens should be going off — primary challenge, primary challenge, primary challenge!”
“When you’re a Democrat in New York and these are your ratings, this is a big wake-up call if you’re Chuck Schumer,” Enten told viewers.
SEE IT: CNN analyst shocked by Sen. Schumer's “almost unfathomable” favorability drop, saying it “screams” a primary challenge
— Election Wizard (@ElectionWiz) April 25, 2025
Enten pointed out Ocasio-Cortez’s favorability ratings among Democrats are considerably higher, “in the 60s.”
Although Schumer isn’t up for reelection until 2028, Ocasio-Cortez’s star is quickly rising within the party. The far-left congresswoman, alongside Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), has been drawing massive crowds on their “Fighting Oligarchy” campaign tour.
Despite the glaring hypocrisy of the pair’s growing fondness for private jet travel, crowds across the country have flocked to their rallies — and damn if Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric doesn’t feel like she’s auditioning for higher office.
In the clip below, Fox News contributor and 2026 Republican gubernatorial candidate in California, Steve Hilton, pointed out that Ocasio-Cortez and Sanders are attacking the very system that enables people to fly around on private jets.
He noted that California has implemented its program and the results have been disastrous.
AOC and Bernie running around California talking about their socialist utopia. We’ve already seen it. Their policies have been implemented in California. We’ve got the Green New Deal. We’ve got all their massive spending. We’ve just extended MediCal – Medicaid for illegal immigrants. We’re doing what they want and the results are a total disaster.
Bernie and AOC fly around California on private jets preaching their socialist utopia while the ACTUAL policies they’re pushing gave California the highest poverty rate in America. pic.twitter.com/2nkvMHGvwp
— steve hilton (@SteveHiltonx) April 19, 2025
In many ways, Ocasio-Cortez is a skilled politician — she shines on social media and electrifies crowds at campaign rallies — but she has one major flaw that could hold her back. She’s not smart. She struggles to engage in substantive policy discussions. Setting aside the prospect of a presidential debate for the moment, it’s doubtful she could even hold her own against Schumer in a senatorial debate.
Additionally, many New Yorkers still haven’t forgotten her efforts to block Amazon’s plans to build a new headquarters in Queens in 2018. Outraged by the government’s offer of nearly $3 billion in incentives to the online retail giant, Ocasio-Cortez fiercely opposed the project. Mischaracterizing the incentives as funds the city would have to provide to Amazon, her crusade caused the company to cancel its plans.
Given that the venture would have created roughly 25,000 jobs and generated significant tax revenue for the city and state for years to come, it was widely seen as a reckless fight.
Be that as it may, a poll conducted earlier this month by left-leaning polling firm Data for Progress showed Ocasio-Cortez ahead of Schumer by a whopping 19 points in a hypothetical matchup for the 2028 New York Senate primary.
NEW: In a hypothetical matchup for the 2028 U.S. Senate primary in New York, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez leads Chuck Schumer by a 19-point margin. pic.twitter.com/PxitdlN6MO
— Data for Progress (@DataProgress) April 4, 2025
All of this is unfolding as a growing number of elderly Democratic members of Congress have announced plans to retire at the end of their current terms. Many party insiders, most notably David Hogg, one of the Democratic National Committee’s five vice chairs, are actively trying to recruit younger candidates to replace the older members.
Dubbed the “Biden Effect,” these efforts may have been a factor in the recent retirement decisions of the following Democratic senators: Sens. Dick Durbin (IL), Tina Smith (MN), Gary Peters (MI), and Jeanne Shaheen (NH).
Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), 80, who was facing a primary challenge from a 26-year-old, is only the latest House Democrat to announce she will not be seeking reelection.
Although it’s way too soon for Schumer to make a decision about 2028, and Ocasio-Cortez may be peaking too soon, he may face calls to step down from his leadership position in the Senate long before that.
I’ll leave you with this:
Comedian and Fox News contributor Jimmy Faila joked that “many people believe [Ocasio-Cortez] could be the next woman to lose a presidential election.”
“So, can AOC fake it til she makes it, or will she lose the nomination to a liberal with more grassroots support like Luigi Mangione?”
AOC may have a fake accent but her shamelessness is real: pic.twitter.com/PjDsJpif7p
— Jimmy Failla (@jimmyfailla) April 21, 2025
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on LinkedIn or X.
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“speculation that he could face a serious primary challenge from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — assuming she doesn’t opt to run for president instead.”
She’ll do both — in pursuit of yet another “historic Democrat first!”
“damn if Ocasio-Cortez’s rhetoric doesn’t feel like she’s auditioning for higher office.”
Why not? After all, she auditioned to get the office she has now.
“she has one major flaw that could hold her back. She’s not smart.”
That’s never held back a Democrat before. Threaten your legislator? I haven’t been to Europe? The press doesn’t fellate Democrats enough? Get in their faces and push back? Please don’t capsize Guam?
Nah, AOC is Fit, Fuddled, and Ready!
Schumer is a putz.
Well, duh.
That is my assessment as well.
He is a punk. Always has been.
Chuck violated the far left covenant and now he will pay the price.
The highlight of the Coachella Festival was AOC sacrificing a Tesla to Quetzalcoatl.
Just wait until Burning Man!
Rip out the heart of a Tesla for a sacrifice, and Burning Man will come early.
Elizabeth, you need to denounce yourself for using the word “serious” and “ Ocasio-Cortez” in the same sentence.
If she’s elected – and there’s little doubt that she would be – she’ll be just another idiot in the Senate, of which there are many, unfortunately.
Well, one must admit if Adam Shitforbrains (MS-13) can become a California Senator, and Kamala Harris (TdA) was the nominee for President then Occasional-Cortex (Marxist NY) can be the nominee.
Between the three, if brains were dynamite, they couldn’t put together enough to blow their nose.
Actually, the far left voters will obediently shout their approval and cast their votes for whomever their masters tell them to.
They will believe and internalize hate for Schumer, if that’s what they’re told, and adore AOC, as long as she’s The Choice.
They have no actual firm opinions or principles; they are perpetual adolescents whose beliefs are those of their peer group.
“As usual, the face of Emmanuel Goldstein, the Enemy of the People, had flashed on to the screen. There were hisses here and there among the audience. The little sandy-haired woman gave a squeak of mingled fear and disgust. Goldstein was the renegade and backslider who once, long ago (how long ago, nobody quite remembered), had been one of the leading figures of the Party, almost on a level with Big Brother himself, and then had engaged in counter-revolutionary activities, had been condemned to death, and had mysteriously escaped and disappeared. The programmes of the Two Minutes Hate varied from day to day, but there was none in which Goldstein was not the principal figure. He was the primal traitor, the earliest defiler of the Party’s purity. All subsequent crimes against the Party, all treacheries, acts of sabotage, heresies, deviations, sprang directly out of his teaching.”
Waow.
That ilk never changes.
Can you imagine, back in the 70s, cult members would drink the Kool Aid. Today they become Democrats.
Schumer is a contemptible and feckless schmuck, but, states get the leadership they vote for, and thus, deserve.
If a majority of voting-age New Yorkers are sufficiently stupid and gullible to elevate the manifestly arrogant, entitled, narcissistic, dumb-as-rocks, too lazy/stupid to succeed in the private sector demagogue-twit, Occasional-Cortex, to be the next Dhimmi-crat apparatchik and hustler whose laughable and offensive paucity of substantive private sector accomplishment is allegedly compensated for by his/her skin pigmentation, ethnic background and genitalia, then, these fools deserve to reap the predictably destructive and deleterious consequences of that wretched choice.
2028 is 30 political years away.
Chuck Schumer always sucked as a Senator. He was particularly unimpressive in every way. It was amazing that he ever rose to leadership because he clearly has no skills. Schumer has never been anything but a useless nebbish. I challenge anyone to name a single thing he has EVER done in the Senate that made any difference in anything.
What’s funny is that the other NY Senator is even more useless than Chuckles. If you said her name, most Americans wouldn’t recognize it and the ones who do would say that they thought she died some years ago.
Shumer is cooked. He’s a Jew (sort of) and today’s democrat hates Jews (at least a third of them and growing). He’s also a putz sand very unlikeable.
The intelligence of the average democrat voter can be seen in their fondness for AOC. She’s an idiot which matches up well with the average democrat voter.
Of course NY is know for their idiot democrats. You have their other idiot senator Gillibrand. You have short fat nader. You have the Cummo family. You have the stupid governor and the angry black fat AG. Big soda billionaire Blumenthal. And let’s not forget the other nutcase democrat mayors of NYC like communists Dinkens and de Blasio.
Chuckie, you stayed too long at the dance.
the real danger??
the rise of the is lamic wing of the left getting more comfortable and maga fearing how to stop them “within the law”
Schumer is one of the most effective Dems in history because he has at times played the game with the other side. He’s their Mitch McConnell, basically.
That’s hurting him now but to assume that he has a huge downfall because of anything other than the extreme wing of the party is hilarious. These popularity pollings are almost all skewed far away from the sentiment of the country because of the concentration of Dems in their cockroach and rat-infested (of course, those ARE the Dem species) metropolitan dystopias.