Democrats could pick up a once-unthinkable nine Senate seats by the time votes are fully counted from Tuesday’s midterms. Chuck Schumer says he’s just getting started.
The triumphant Senate Democratic leader sat in his Capitol office Thursday and described a “long-term effort” to build on his party’s gains and create a “durable” majority — largely by proving to voters “that we really can get things done.”
“We're going to keep building. We're going to build over the next two years first by passing things, or at least fighting hard for things that people want, and we know they want,” he said, adding, “If we do that, we can expand the map.”
It’s a pledge that gained immense new credibility Tuesday when Democrats defied warnings about the unfavorable 2026 Senate map and picked up seats in several states President Donald Trump won two years earlier. Democratic candidates are also ahead in the two uncalled races, in Alaska and Mississippi.
Now Schumer is on track to keep his leadership post and plot his party’s effort to exploit an even more advantageous lineup of races in 2028.
Democrats will need to hold on to their newly-won seat in Ohio, and they also have to defend seats in traditional swing states like Arizona, Colorado, Georgia and Nevada. But Republicans have several vulnerabilities of their own — including seats in Wisconsin, which just elected an all-Democratic state government; North Carolina, which just saw its GOP-majority congressional delegation decimated; and in other states Democrats just won including Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina.
But to make good on his dreams of expansion, Schumer must unite and effectively manage the various factions within his caucus over the next two years. Complicating that job will be the looming free-for-all presidential primary that could involve several of his members — not to mention Schumer’s own 2028 reelection decision.
Had Democrats had a bad night Tuesday, Schumer could have faced an early test in securing another term as leader — with some progressives groups eager to force a conversation about new blood in the top ranks.
Some incoming Democratic freshmen have vowed not to back Schumer as leader, and Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, who is eyeing a 2028 White House bid, wants to have conversations about the majority’s legislative agenda before Democrats hold a leadership election, which is expected in early December.
“The Democratic caucus needs to have a discussion about what we should do with this new responsibility that has been entrusted with us, and we should have a full and honest discussion in our caucus about what the plan is, what direction we want to go in,” Van Hollen said in an interview.
But the electoral romp has extinguished any serious discussion of making a change at the top, with many Democrats saying Schumer richly earned another two years in charge.
“Trust me, had the results turned out differently, we would be saying it was a result of disastrous leadership,” Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-Md.) said in an interview. “So if it works to our favor, then I think we have a right to say that it was a result of some things that went well.”
For his part, Schumer has moved to downplay any suggestion of tension within his suddenly much more ideologically and geographically diverse caucus. In the interview, he noted his friendly relations with both hard-left firebrand Abdul El-Sayed — one of the freshmen who say they want a new leader — and moderate Methodist pastor Adam Hamilton in Kansas.
“The media wants to make it, ‘This is going to be a fight,’” Schumer said. “It's not. I speak to all these candidates. I speak to Abdul all the time. I speak to Hamilton all the time. We're on the same page.”
While red-state Democrats had become all but extinct in the Senate over the past decade, Schumer is not a stranger to managing ideological tensions in his ranks. During his first stint as majority leader under then-President Joe Biden, he presided over a threadbare 50-seat majority where maverick Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona frequently frustrated the remainder of the caucus.
Schumer said he views his incoming red-state Democrats differently than those predecessors, saying they ran on the same platform as his members in deep-blue coastal states.
“When they ran, they each ran individually, on their own,” he said, referring to the likes of Manchin and Sinema. “We have from one end of the country to the other the message of cost, chaos, and corruption.”
Schumer pointed to the host of policy proposals that Democrats have rolled out over the past two years as a roadmap for the Senate’s upcoming legislative agenda, broadly addressing topics including housing, health care and energy. Still — even if Democrats run the table in the remaining races — they will be short of the 60-vote filibuster threshold necessary for advancing most bills.
While he said Democrats are “going to do everything we can to pass legislation,” Schumer would not directly address how to get bills to Trump’s desk. He batted down questions over whether Democrats should pursue the party-line reconciliation process or carve up the chamber’s legislative filibuster even if the bills they pass have no chance of getting signed into law.
He did issue a warning to Republicans about any potential obstruction — and took a shot at Trump, whom he has yet to speak to following the election.
“We're not going to wait for Trump,” Schumer said. “Who knows what the hell he'll do? But we're going to put solutions on the table.”
And if Republican senators “stand in the way,” he added, “I think the election of 2028 will make 2026 look tame because they're so out of touch with the American people.”
The ultimate goal, he said, is to take action on critical matters and show voters what a red-state Democrat might look like versus what "they're told about what Democrats are [on] Fox News.”
After successfully wooing candidates like former North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper and former Ohio Sen. Sherrod Brown into winning 2026 races, Schumer said he hasn’t started recruiting for 2028, but that he believes Democrats now have footholds that will make winning in red states easier.
“I've spent decades working to change the Senate map,” he said. “This is a real, unique opportunity, planned out, and now we’ve got to make sure it lasts.”
Calen Razor and Lauren Fedor contributed to this report.
