Chuck Schumer Hits His Limit

Everything was ready for Dan Kleban to launch his candidacy for Senate in Maine: He had informed top Democrats about his decision, hired staff to run his campaign and picked an early summer day in 2025 to make the public announcement.

And then a call came in from Washington. It was a warning from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

“They were basically like, don’t launch,” said one person with direct knowledge of the situation. “We’re telling you: ‘Don’t launch.’”

Kleban’s campaign was stunned. Kleban was a politically active owner of a well-known brewery, and he hadn’t kept his plans a secret. Just a week earlier, Kleban and his aides had told the DSCC that they were announcing their campaign shortly after the July 4th holiday and received no pushback, according to two sources with direct knowledge of the situation.

Now, he and his campaign were left with the impression that if he ran, Democrats in Washington would make it difficult because they were holding their support for Maine Gov. Janet Mills.

The two sources also viewed the call as a fresh signal that Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who controls the DSCC, was opposed to their candidacy, a worrying development given his yearslong dominance in Democratic politics.

A separate source familiar with the campaign categorically denied that the DSCC issued any threat, saying that the committee had made clear from the start that it would back Mills’ potential candidacy. The source, who also disputed that Schumer would be so involved in the race to have an opinion about Kleban’s campaign, said the brewery owner ultimately delayed his decision to announce because his advisers didn’t think he could win a primary without the committee’s support.

Regardless of the reason, the damage had been done: Kleban delayed his launch, letting months pass before he made his announcement. By then, it was too late: Graham Platner declared in August and became an instant sensation with the party’s base. Mills finally announced her own campaign in October and immediately struggled to gain any traction, ultimately dropping out as a wave of momentum carried Platner to the party’s nomination.

Platner’s nomination is now a major concern for Democrats. And it left some Democrats in Maine wondering whether Kleban could have given voters a viable alternative to the lefty firebrand — and angry that Democrats in Washington, led by Schumer, interfered.

“They completely whiffed in Maine,” said the source with direct knowledge.

Democratic frustration with Schumer goes far beyond Maine. To a previously unreported degree, the longtime Democratic leader, acting through the DSCC, has struggled to navigate a series of tumultuous primaries, beset by an angry base of voters, insurgent candidates and party officials who complain that he’s alternately done too little or too much to influence races.

The result has been the messiest collection of Democratic primaries in decades. The Senate minority leader faces another fraught primary in Michigan in August, where a Schumer-backed candidate is struggling to best lefty favorite Abdul El-Sayed. The DSCC tried and failed to hold off a third candidate, state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, mirroring the scramble — and ultimately the failure — to shape the primary in Maine.

The tumult has amounted to a stunning rebuke of Schumer, who is seen by many Democrats as having controlled most primaries in battleground states with an iron grip for the last decade.

“The thing about iron is it rusts,” El-Sayed told NOTUS in a recent interview. “I’m proud to be the only candidate in my race that the Senate minority leader has said that he would not be OK with.”

“I do think people in Michigan are sick and tired of being told what they cannot have and should not fight for by people in D.C.,” he added. “And we present an opportunity to think differently about them.”

A DSCC spokesperson said the committee was focused on winning a majority this fall.

“Democratic Senate candidates are out-polling, out-raising and out-organizing their Republican opponents,” DSCC communications director Maeve Coyle said in a statement in response to this story. “The DSCC’s focus is on beating Republicans, and instead of using all their time to complain about past primaries, these blind sources are welcome to join our effort to defeat Republicans and secure a Democratic Senate majority this November.”

It’s hard to overstate just how uncommon the spate of competitive Democratic primaries in battleground states has been over the last 20 years. The last time a D.C.-backed Democratic candidate lost a primary in a swing state was in 2010, when Democratic Sen. Arlen Specter lost a primary in Pennsylvania and former state Sen. Cal Cunningham lost his primary in North Carolina. Many times, the party’s preferred choice receives a de facto free pass in the primary: In Arizona, former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema cruised to an easy primary victory in 2018, followed by Sen. Mark Kelly in 2020, and Sen. Ruben Gallego in 2024.

The tumultuous behind-the-scenes action comes at an awkward time for Democrats, who are trying to win back a Senate majority through a series of mostly red states like Ohio, Iowa and Alaska. The party needs to gain a net of four seats for a majority, with most in the party considering the contests in Michigan (which is currently held by Democrats) and Maine must-wins.

Schumer has succeeded in getting his favorites in some of those states, including former Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper in North Carolina, former Rep. Mary Peltola in Alaska and former Sen. Sherrod Brown in Ohio. Schumer’s preferred candidate in Iowa, state Rep. Josh Turek, emerged from a hotly contested primary, but pro-Turek allies had to pump $10 million into the race to get him through it.

“A year ago, few believed a Senate Democratic majority was even possible,” a spokesperson for Schumer’s office said in a statement. “Leader Schumer’s work recruiting candidates, expanding the battlefield, and putting Republican candidates on defense has turned a difficult map into a real path to the majority. He’s focused on the only thing that matters: winning in November.”

The hand-wringing and frustrations over Schumer’s role this year come as questions get louder about his own political future ahead of a potential 2028 reelection campaign.

Sometimes, that frustration has been over perplexing inaction. That’s what played out last year in Texas.

By the spring of 2025, Washington Republicans appeared to understand they had a candidate problem in the Texas Senate race. At least two internal polls popped up in news coverage showing that in a potential 2026 matchup, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton trailed Democrat Colin Allred, a former congressmember who ran for Senate in 2024. The selective poll release was part of an effort to pressure the White House and donors to reject Paxton and support Sen. John Cornyn in the Republican primary.

But, to the surprise of some Democrats, the DSCC did not step in to boost Allred and shape the Democratic primary field, according to two people directly familiar with the situation and a third who was briefed on it, all of whom were granted anonymity to describe private interactions.

It was all the more shocking to those Democrats given the DSCC’s involvement in Allred’s campaign.

In December 2024, Allred spoke with DSCC Chair Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand by phone. She encouraged him to run again in 2026 and promised to be with him on election night. Initially, the DSCC made clear to Allred’s team that he was the preferred candidate, including by being deeply involved in Allred’s search for a campaign manager.

As state Rep. James Talarico’s profile rose last summer, the DSCC attempted to orchestrate a candidate shuffle. The DSCC advised Talarico to consider running for governor, according to a fourth person directly familiar with the situation. The committee went so far as to connect Talarico’s team with the Democratic Governors Association, the person said. Talarico resisted those overtures and launched his Senate campaign in September.

The DSCC’s “lack of public support” for Allred “contributed to the feeling I think that led others to get into the race,” said the first person. Unlike the NRSC, the DSCC didn’t release its own polling that likely would’ve shown Allred with the strongest general election path, in order to quiet concerns from progressives and seal off a path for other candidates.

“I think the dichotomy between how aggressive [the NRSC was] and how passive the DSCC was was really weird,” the person continued. “They were just silent, and Schumer was silent, Gillibrand went silent.”

Initially, the DSCC made clear to Allred’s team that he was the preferred candidate. Susan Walsh/AP

The DSCC maintained its hands-off strategy in Texas into the fall even as rumors swirled about a third candidate weighing a run: the social media firebrand Rep. Jasmine Crockett. Democrats couldn’t survive a bloody runoff and realistically pivot to an enormously expensive general election, these Democrats said. Even so, the DSCC “never took” Crockett “seriously, until it was too late, and then they started scrambling at the end to try and keep her out, and their efforts were just half-assed,” this person said.

That fall, a DSCC staffer called Allred’s campaign manager and told him that the committee needed the campaign’s help in stopping Crockett. They asked for help reaching Democratic donor Karla Jurvetson, one of Crockett’s top supporters, former DNC Chair Donna Brazile and Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren. It’s unclear whether anyone from the Allred campaign ever attempted to reach Jurvetson, Brazile or Warren, these people said.

“In professional, big boy politics, where you have hundreds of millions of dollars on the line, control of the Senate and Supreme Court seats — I just don’t think you call, a couple days before, and say, ‘Hey, can you ask, like, a donor and former DNC chair for help?’” the person said. “What are you doing? Make your preference clear. Speak out.”

Allred ultimately dropped out of the primary to run for a House seat instead. He endorsed Crockett for Senate.

Senate Democrats give Schumer and the DSCC credit for recruiting quality candidates in Ohio, North Carolina and Alaska, carving a path to winning a Senate majority next year. But some have chafed at his decisions in other states, arguing that establishment-backed candidates would fare poorly in an election cycle where many voters are rejecting the status quo — and Schumer himself.

“The DS is the official arm of our caucus and where Chuck Schumer decides to spend money,” Warren told NOTUS. “My view is let the candidates get out there, build their own campaigns, raise their own resources to do it, attract other support without the DS putting its heavy thumb on it. I think that’s a real mistake.”

Another Democratic senator, who requested anonymity to speak freely about caucus dynamics, said there is “a fundamental divergence in opinion” about what it’s going to take to win back the Senate.

“Some of us have had the view that strong outsider candidates who were delivering a populist message and a critique of the Washington establishment were the kinds of candidates that were going to be winning candidates in 2026, and I think we’re right,” the senator added.

Progressive victories across the country — including in New York City — have added fuel to speculation about Schumer’s future in the Senate. Some on the left have floated Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez as a primary challenger to the New York senator, while others have talked up fellow Senate Democrats as candidates for leader, such as Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.

“I think a lot of Democratic senators are starting to think about what a different kind of leadership model would look like,” a Democratic senator said of Schumer.

Other Democrats downplayed divisions in their caucus, however, insisting the disagreements are tactical and that their party will coalesce to take back the Senate in November.

“I’m totally untroubled by it,” Vermont Sen. Peter Welch told NOTUS. “This is, in my view, a reflection of individual senators putting a lot of energy into trying to help us get a majority, even if we don’t fully agree amongst all of us about who is the best candidate in each race.”

“Leader Schumer has done a good job recruiting candidates like Cooper, [Alex] Vindman and Turek, while holding our caucus together,” Rhode Island Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse told NOTUS. “In some cases, primaries surface previously unknown stars and our party welcomes that.”

Schumer’s decision to tacitly back Rep. Haley Stevens has frustrated some Democrats. Tom Williams/AP

One longtime Democratic strategist working on this year’s Senate campaigns argued that Schumer has put Democrats on the precipice of retaking the chamber through his candidate recruitment. The recruitment wins in red states, the strategist said, are one of the main reasons Democrats are eyeing a majority that at the beginning of 2025 felt very improbable.

But some Democrats remain concerned about whether all the tumult will jeopardize their chances to win a majority this year. Those fears are running high in Michigan, where El-Sayed has galvanized support among the state’s young progressive base and leads in most polls of the race.

Schumer’s decision to tacitly back Rep. Haley Stevens has frustrated some Democrats, including some who viewed McMorrow as a more viable alternative.

Stevens, boosted by support among Black voters, a relentless focus on manufacturing policy and a surge of outside group spending, may yet win the primary, especially with McMorrow struggling to retain support. But some Democratic strategists remain miffed about the party’s decision making from the get-go.

“All their instincts are still rooted in 2006,” said one party strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “They’re wrong in almost every single place. And that’s where this is going sideways.”

The party’s most glaring mistake might still have come in Maine. Kleban, of course, could still have lost to Platner, whose expansive populist agenda won over many progressive voters. But Kleban almost certainly would have been a more passable alternative than 78-year-old Mills, whom in-state Democrats say was reluctant to run in the first place and ran an underwhelming campaign.

“If Schumer had come to Maine and just talked to Janet’s best friends, he’d have found out that none of them wanted her to run,” said one source with knowledge of the situation. “All of the people who knew her personally, overwhelming sentiment up here, there was no one here who thought it was a good idea.”