Sanders, Slotkin Say They’re Not Backing Schumer

Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., announced Tuesday that they would not back Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., in his effort to become majority leader next year.

The duo — leading voices on the center and left of the Democratic Party — took pains to avoid discussing specific policy issues, arguing instead that it is time for a new generation of leaders to take charge. “If this campaign was about anything, it was about change,” Sanders said, adding that “poll after poll suggests that the American people want bold change.”

“The public is done with people who say a lot of words but aren’t actually going to put more money in people’s pockets,” Slotkin said. “I personally will work with anyone who wants to work on that mission instead of looking like we’re doing things.”

Neither Sanders nor Slotkin specified which of their colleagues they would support in the race for majority leader, though Slotkin said she had a “productive conversation” with Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., about his potential candidacy.

Sanders and Slotkin’s joint press conference suggests that momentum is building behind the effort to find new Democratic leadership in the Senate. Schumer, who has led the caucus since 2017, helped deliver an overwhelming victory for the Democrats in the midterm elections. But he now finds himself out of step with much of the party’s voter base, particularly on Israel, which Schumer has long supported.

Van Hollen, who is one of the Senate’s most prominent critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship, has emerged as a leading contender to take Schumer’s place. “I am in the process right now of calling my colleagues,” he said Tuesday. “We just saw democracy in America in action. We should bring a little more democracy to the United States Senate.”

A Van Hollen-led Democratic caucus would likely lean into progressive positions, with a focus on populist economic policies at home and reining in American war-making abroad. In recent months, Van Hollen has spearheaded efforts to reject AIPAC funding, rein in settler violence in the West Bank and stop the Iran war. “It’s my strong view that this was an illegal war when Donald Trump started it and it is an illegal war now,” he told Responsible Statecraft in August.

It remains unclear whether other senators will jump into the race for leadership as Schumer’s grip on the caucus slips. Sen. Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii, who is respected among both centrists and progressives, is currently in line for the No. 2 position in the Senate, majority whip, though he has not publicly expressed an interest in running for majority leader.