The morning after election night, Sen. Chuck Schumer was in a very good mood.
Democrats had won back the Senate, and even Schumer had not expected a majority of this size.
“So let me begin by just plagiarizing a little bit from Frankie Valli, a great New Jerseyite. Oh, what a night! Against all odds, Democrats have won the Senate, and we have five words for the American people, relief is on the way,” Schumer quipped.
In his first remarks to the press on Capitol Hill after the Democratic victory, Schumer began by acknowledging what he called a generational remake of the Senate led by Democrats. But he was not handing over the leadership baton.
“I’ll be reelected as majority leader,” he reassured.
And if someone does decide to challenge him for the majority leader position, that challenger would have to defeat Schumer in a secret ballot election among Senate Democrats. For now, Schumer is acting like a man who expects to remain exactly where he is.
With control of Congress now in Democratic hands, two New Yorkers are poised to dominate Capitol Hill. Schumer will lead Senate Democrats, while Hakeem Jeffries is positioned to take the speaker’s gavel in the House.
Together, they will decide what legislation moves through Congress, what investigations are launched and how aggressively Democrats confront Trump during the final two years of his presidency.
On the Republican side, the picture is considerably less settled.
House Speaker Mike Johnson is stepping away from Republican leadership and will not run to lead the party in the minority. His departure immediately opens a fight over who succeeds him.
Two names are already at the center of it: House Majority Leader Steve Scalise and House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan. Both will have to win over their Republican colleagues in a secret ballot leadership election next week.
The knives are out, and Republicans are heading into a period of infighting just as Democrats prepare to take control.
How did Democrats pull it off?
Schumer’s explanation is straightforward. The Democratic coalition, he said, “moved as one body” by identifying the issues Americans cared about most and staying focused on them.
“We talked to Americans. We said, ‘What is on your minds?’ And of course, number one, cost the high cost of living. How difficult it was to raise a family and do the things you wanted to make sure that you to have a good life and your kids would have a good life. And second, they talked about Trump’s corruption. We know he was the most corrupt president ever, by a lot.”
For Schumer, the lesson of the election is that Democrats succeeded by turning the campaign back toward household economics and against corruption rather than allowing themselves to be pulled into every political fight coming from the White House.
Now he is promising that the new majority will use its power to pursue both.
“There’s gotta be some investigation,” Schumer promised before adding a caveat. “But we’re not going to take our eye off the ball. Number one, reducing costs, ending corruption,” said Schumer.
The political message is accountability, but the governing message is affordability.
Schumer turns to Iran
The Iran war emerged as one of the defining political liabilities for Republicans during the midterms. Trump himself has acknowledged that the conflict played a role in the Republican defeat.
Schumer now says Democrats intend to use their new congressional power to try to end it.
“Look, we are going to end the war. We have some Republicans already who have joined us in ending the war, and the founding fathers had the power of the purse as one of the ways of deterring a president who does war without the consent of the American people,” said Schumer.
That is potentially one of the most consequential signals from the incoming Senate majority leader.
Democrats have already found some Republican support for efforts to challenge Trump’s conduct of the war. With Democrats now controlling both chambers, they will have far greater ability to use Congress’ spending authority to challenge the administration’s strategy.
Whether they can actually force Trump to end the conflict is another question. The president still has the veto.
Schumer knows that. Jeffries knows that. Trump has already made clear that he knows it, too.
But the morning after Democrats took Congress, Schumer was not talking like a man worried about what Trump might veto.
He was talking like a man who had just won.
“Oh, what a night.”
realted
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