Sen. Bernie Sanders looked into a camera and said what Washington already knew. "I like Chuck, nobody works harder than Chuck Schumer. But the time is now for change and I will not support Chuck."
That was one of seven.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is heading into a secret ballot leadership vote next month with Democrats projected to hold 54 to 56 seats in the new majority — and at least seven members of his own caucus publicly refusing to back him. He responded to this by declaring his conference "really united."
"I'm confident I will be elected majority leader," Schumer told reporters. "And our caucus is really united in focusing on bringing down costs, on ending corruption."
The caucus he's describing includes Sanders, who just said he won't vote for him. It includes Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan, who said flatly: "I'm a no until and unless I see that from anyone." And it includes five freshly elected senators who haven't even been sworn in yet and are already in open revolt.
Those five senators-elect — Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, Troy Jackson of Maine, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, Juliana Stratton of Illinois, and Adam Hamilton of Kansas — aren't hedging. Hamilton went on NBC's Meet the Press and called Schumer a "divisive figure." That's a freshman senator-elect publicly torching the man who's supposed to be his leader before he's unpacked his office.
The opposition isn't coming from one wing. Sanders is knifing Schumer from the left — the socialist lane, the populist lane, the "you're too cozy with corporate donors" lane. Slotkin is coming from the center — the pragmatic, Michigan-moderate lane that won her a Senate seat by running away from national Democrats. They agree on nothing except that Schumer shouldn't be in charge.
Even the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers sent a letter opposing Schumer's leadership. When organized labor is writing formal letters against the Democrat who's supposed to be their champion in the Senate, the "unity" talking point isn't just wrong — it's performance art.
Schumer's defenders are doing their best. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand of New York offered: "No one has put in the time and effort that anyone has put into this cycle that he did." Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland also backed him. But defending a leader by pointing to how hard he worked during a cycle that produced an internal mutiny is a peculiar strategy.
The math still probably works. Schumer needs a simple majority of the caucus in a secret ballot, and seven defectors out of 54-plus seats leaves him room. But the margin isn't the story.
The story is that Democrats just won the Senate — the thing they've been working toward since they lost it — and their first act was to start a civil war over who gets to run it. Sanders wants a populist revolution. Slotkin wants competent centrism. The freshmen want someone who isn't Chuck Schumer. None of them want the same replacement, which means Schumer probably survives by default.
Breitbart reported the full scope of the opposition. Seven public defectors. A labor union letter. A "unity" declaration that aged like milk before the press conference ended.
Schumer called his caucus united. Seven members of his caucus disagreed — on the record, by name, before the vote.