Audacious prediction

Chuck Schumer's audacious prediction

Forget 2016: Democrats are on the cusp of a golden era, the incoming Democratic Senate leader says in a POLITICO interview.

By Burgess Everett and Edward-Isaac Dovere

Chuck Schumer is feeling good enough about the battle for Senate control to essentially predict he’ll be majority leader next year. Not only that, the veteran New York Democrat believes his party is on the cusp of something much bigger: An era of electoral dominance.

“We’re going to have a Democratic generation. [President Barack Obama] helped create it. But it’s just where America’s moving demographically, ideologically and in every way,” Schumer told POLITICO in a lengthy interview this week at the Democratic National Convention. “We’ll have a mandate to get something done.”

Schumer’s rosy outlook may be at odds with the many headaches confronting him if Democrats manage to pick up the four seats they need to flip the Senate.

The day after the election, Senate Democrats will be on defense. The party will face an awful map in the 2018 midterm and long odds to hang on to the Senate if they manage to win it this year, compounded by the potential for an electoral backlash if Hillary Clinton becomes president.

And Schumer, if he is in fact majority leader, will be under fire from every direction: Liberals pushing for a more progressive agenda, endangered moderate Democrats looking to keep their jobs, a new president with a presumably ambitious Year One to-do list, and activist groups demanding that Congress pass immigration and gun reform.

Still, the 65-year-old senator appeared calm and confident, if not entirely willing to divulge his game plan in detail. In broad strokes it comes down to this: Convincing voters the Senate is capable of functioning by passing important legislation, and capitalizing on the nation’s changing demographics, including a new generation of young voters he believes Democrats are poised to capture.

But to pursue the mandate he believes voters will give him, Democrats will need far more than a slim majority. In 2018, Democrats will be on defense in five conservative states and a handful of swing states.

How many seats must Democrats win in November to give the party more than a fleeting two years in the majority? Schumer dodged any attempt to pin him down.

“You are the hammer and the nail. And I am the jello,” Schumer said.

Schumer will have to move quickly to execute his plan, and the first task is underway now as he and Democratic officials try — in vain for now — to find someone to lead the Democrats’ campaign arm. While GOP Sens. Thom Tillis of North Carolina and Cory Gardner of Colorado are actively seeking out the National Republican Senatorial Committee jobs, no one is raising their hand to lead the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. It's a daunting assignment: Democrats will have to defend 25 seats in 2018 vs. just eight for Republicans, a reversal from this year's left-leaning map.

Prominent Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota doesn’t want the post. Neither does rising liberal star Jeff Merkley of Oregon. Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware is being actively recruited by Schumer but is resisting: “I have three teenagers,” Coons said when asked if he wants the position.

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it," Schumer said. "One of the problems is we have half our class up in 2018. Let’s win the majority first.”

The job of caucus leader is all-consuming, far more perilous than Schumer’s prominent current role as chief messenger and electoral tactician. In addition to managing the politics of his caucus and red-state Democrats up for reelection in 2018, he’ll have to plot a course for 2017 that will satisfy his increasingly liberal party and give him a chance to build that “Democratic generation” he insists is possible.

To do that, Schumer may need a new partner atop the leadership rungs. Democratic whip Dick Durbin and Schumer have had a frosty relationship at times, and the No. 4 Senate Democrat Patty Murray is seen as a potential future Democratic leader and may not want to play second fiddle to anyone.

Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid brought Schumer into the fold a decade ago. In an interview, Reid said the secret for Schumer is to find a confidant who complements him, like the New Yorker did for Reid.

“I’ve given him some names. And he’s going to have to make that decision himself. We have some people in our caucus he’s going to have to get really close with,” Reid said.

Picking a No. 2 might turn out to be the least of his issues. The Democratic Caucus will be fraught with tension: Senators such as Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts are set to compete with endangered moderates like Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota to influence Schumer’s priority list in the all-important first year of a new administration.

Disparate factions of the Democratic coalition are already pressing for commitments from Schumer. Gun control advocates want a commitment to push legislation early in 2017, while immigration reformers and even some Republicans want him to dust off the 2013 immigration bill and move it as quickly as possible.

“In the first six months of 2017, we are really going to deliver on some key issues that are going to show what governing is all about,” said Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, slated to be the powerful Finance Committee chairman if Democrats win. “It would be legislative malpractice to not have a major roads and bridges and ports and infrastructure effort early in 2017.”

Another task at hand is Schumer’s working relationship with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. As minority leader, McConnell expertly stumped the Democratic agenda, wielding delay tactics and leveraging the 60-vote filibuster threshold to frustrate Reid for years.

Some Democrats say they've had enough and want Schumer to alter Senate rules to finally break the logjam.

“We need to change the rules of the Senate to keep one person from dragging things out and to keep having every vote require 60,” said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who saw a signature energy bill die at the hands of a filibuster just weeks before her narrow 2014 reelection.

Schumer doesn’t want to get into his agenda now, whether it’s guns, immigration, filling a still-vacant Supreme Court seat or the chamber’s rules. But he is talking to his caucus and to Clinton about how to govern.

“The American people are yearning for action and I do believe that our Republican colleagues, if they lose this election by quite a bit and I think they will … our mainstream Republicans are going to say they cannot let the tea party run the show,” Schumer said.

Republicans say the New York senator is getting ahead of himself.

“Sen. Schumer might want to get out of Washington, D.C. and New York City a bit more to see what is actually going on in these campaigns,” said Andrea Bozek, a spokeswoman for the NRSC. “They are facing an electorate that doesn’t want another eight years of failed [Democratic] policies.”

The key Senate races this year are tighter than Democrats would like. A potential canary in the coal mine is in Ohio, where Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio) has been racking up union endorsements and raising eye-popping sums of money against former Democratic Gov. Ted Strickland.

“Rob Portman is acting, if you read his ads, like he’s against free trade. That is hypocrisy, and it shows you the pickle he’s in. I mean, it’s amazing, this man was the [U.S. trade representative],” Schumer said, among his most personal criticisms to date of a sitting senator. “At least some of their candidates have the courage to defend what they believe in.”

Michawn Rich, a spokeswoman for Portman, responded: "I can't blame Chuck Schumer for being frustrated with this race.”

But Schumer seems anything but frustrated these days.

“Happy, colorful, sweet,” he said of himself. “I’m always in a good mood.”