Schumer Forges Ahead in Fight for Senate, Despite Setbacks

For the third time this election season, Senator Chuck Schumer this week had to approach a newly minted Democratic nominee for Senate who had openly opposed keeping him as party leader and try to make common cause for a tough race ahead.

During a phone conversation on Wednesday with Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, who had just triumphed in Michigan over Mr. Schumer’s preferred candidate after a campaign that cast the Democratic leader as part of the problem with Washington, Mr. Schumer was eager to look past their divide.

“I said to him, ‘I don’t need you to like me,’” Mr. Schumer said in an interview as he recounted the conversation. “‘I just need you to win.’”

It is a refrain that Mr. Schumer, of New York, has returned to repeatedly during a chaotic campaign season in which he is working to recapture the majority, solidify his role as the Senate Democratic leader and set himself up for re-election should he decide to seek a sixth term in 2028.

It can be an awkward task as Democratic voters choose candidates hostile to him at a time when the energy in the party is coming from a left flank that disdains the establishment. Recent polling has also shown that Mr. Schumer’s overall public standing is poor, with just 15 percent expressing a favorable opinion of him and 44 percent unfavorable in a CNN poll conducted last month. He had the highest disapproval level of any congressional leader in either party in a survey that showed all four are deeply unpopular.

Despite all of that, Mr. Schumer this week projected optimism about his party’s outlook as the Senate breaks for the summer and the election looms three months off.

President Trump’s approval numbers are low and public discontent about the war in Iran and the price of everyday life is running high. Mr. Schumer said Senate Democrats began the congressional term focused on driving down the president’s popularity by concentrating on rising costs, how Mr. Trump and his family are profiting from his presidency and now the war with Iran — and have succeeded.

“We have been relentless about that in place after place after place, and it has worked,” Mr. Schumer said. “The public believes it is not just going after Trump. It is showing them that we are on their side and showing the division between us and them,” he said of Republicans.

Long the chief architect of his party’s Senate election strategy, Mr. Schumer set out to recruit top-tier candidates to give Democrats a chance of netting the four seats needed to regain the majority.

He scored what looked like notable successes in the key states of Alaska, North Carolina, Ohio and, critically, Maine, long projected the party’s best chance for a pickup by defeating Senator Susan Collins, a Republican, in a state carried by Democrats in the last two presidential elections.

Mr. Schumer secured the candidacy of Janet Mills, a two-term governor who would traditionally be considered a sterling recruit. But Mr. Trump’s tenure was shifting the Democratic Party to the left, and Ms. Mills was pushed out of the race by an untested populist oysterman, Graham Platner, who criticized Mr. Schumer and urged him to step aside.

Mr. Platner’s rise gave momentum to criticism that Mr. Schumer was increasingly out of step with the new progressive tide. But in a phone call after the Maine Democrat’s primary victory, that was water under the bridge; both men stressed the importance of beating Ms. Collins.

Mr. Platner’s campaign soon collapsed amid a series of blockual misconduct accusations, touching off a frenzied replacement process that ended with a new candidate, Troy Jackson, who also said he would not support Mr. Schumer for leader. The two have since met in Washington and had a cordial conversation, according to people familiar with it.

This week’s Michigan primary, in which the Democratic leader had favored Representative Haley Stevens, reignited backlash to Mr. Schumer for failing to embrace the progressive surge. But he said he had quickly engaged with Dr. El-Sayed and found some common ground with him as the two turned their attention to beating the Republican nominee, former Representative Mike Rogers.

“We had a really good conversation,” Mr. Schumer said. “I told him I think we’d agree on things: Beat Rogers, win Michigan, take back the Senate. He said I agree on all three.”

Mr. Schumer added that his takeaway from the call with Dr. El-Sayed was that “we have more that unites us than divides us.” In an interview on Thursday with The New York Times, Dr. El-Sayed, 41, described Mr. Schumer, 75, as “pragmatic.”

His campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Mr. Schumer’s account of their conversation.

The primary winners who expressed resistance to Mr. Schumer have good reason for reaching a truce with the Democratic leader. They will need the full financial support of the Senate Majority PAC, the high-dollar political action committee aligned with Mr. Schumer, to have any chance of countering the Republican money that will pour into those races. The organization has already gone up with a digital campaign backing the new Democratic nominee in Michigan.

Republicans see an opening in the Michigan race with the nomination of Dr. El-Sayed, whom they have attacked as extreme, giving them an opportunity in a seat now held by a Democrat after playing defense elsewhere. Senator John Thune, Republican of South Dakota and the majority leader, this week noted the leftward shift of the competition and said Republicans expected to retain the majority.

“We have quality candidates in all the key competitive races around the country,” he said. “They are going to be well resourced, and my hope would be that when it’s all said and done, we’re going to preserve and protect our majority.”

Among other issues that Mr. Schumer predicted would benefit the Democratic candidates in Maine and Michigan, two almost must-win states for the Democrats, is Mr. Trump’s trade war with Canada, which he said has caused significant economic disruptions in both those states that could hurt Republicans.

With most of the key general election matchups settled, Mr. Schumer and other Democrats say outcomes around the country have reshaped the map. Mr. Schumer now sees Democrats with a chance in places they would not normally be competitive given the president’s standing and the quality of their candidates, including Texas and Iowa, with long shots in Kansas and Mississippi.

“The way you build a majority is to expand the map,” Mr. Schumer said.

Mr. Schumer’s stewardship of Senate Democrats has stirred some grumbling from more progressive senators who resented his jumping into the primaries even though some endorsed primary candidates themselves.

But he said such criticism “goes with the territory.” He retains significant support for staying in a job that many senators do not consider that attractive given its pressure and demands.

Most of his colleagues ***ume that if Democrats capture the majority or significantly erode the Republican hold on the chamber, Mr. Schumer will stay on — though they are less certain about his intentions for 2028.

Mr. Schumer is not saying either way, brushing off questions about his future as he focuses on midterm elections that could help shape it.

“I am focused on winning the Senate in 2026,” he said.

Tim Balk contributed reporting.