That means we’re going to have to compromise.Washington - After Democrats' surprisingly robust performance in the 2022 midterm elections, the battle for control of Congress remains unsettled with a handful of Senate races and several dozen House contests still up in the air.Īccording to CBS News estimates, four Senate races were unresolved as of Thursday, and three of those will determine which party ultimately controls the upper chamber: Arizona, Nevada and Georgia. “We’ve got to focus on getting things done. “I’m going to make a real effort to do as much as we can,” Schumer said, echoing what he’s said since he took the top job two years ago. The Democratic leader said he intends to sit down with McConnell and try to find places to agree, even though the two men have traditionally had a frosty relationship. “So where do we go from here?” Schumer asked. Several Democratic incumbents are up for reelection in 2024, and Republicans still have a good chance of winning the House majority, making negotiations tougher for Schumer. The next two years won’t be easy, even if Warnock does win and give Democrats a crucial extra seat. “He’s had his own sort of Harry Reid moment the last several months,” said Fallon, referring to the late Nevada senator and majority leader who was known as one of the Senate’s toughest dealmakers before passing the torch to Schumer. At no moment was that more evident than this summer, Fallon said, when Schumer unexpectedly announced the deal with Manchin on the sweeping package of bills and took angry Republicans by surprise. They can talk to me directly, no email.”īrian Fallon, a former Schumer aide who is now the executive director of Demand Justice, a liberal advocacy group that supports expanding the court, said Schumer has “come into his own in the last two years” in terms of legislative maneuvering. And he knows many of their numbers by heart, he said. Schumer brags about his communication skills, noting he has every Democratic senator on speed dial in his famous flip phone. At the same time, Warner said, “anybody that underestimates Chuck’s focus and attention to detail does so at their own peril.” Mark Warner, a Democrat who was part of those talks. In terms of bipartisan negotiations, “leaders have to be pretty confident to let that evolve,” said Virginia Sen. Murphy said he talked to Schumer several times a day while he was negotiating the gun bill, but he still let Murphy take the lead. Murphy said Schumer’s style is “totally unique, and it’s very well suited to a 50-50 Senate,” in that he knows when to micromanage and when to ease off. The election wins were “set up by a bunch of victories that ended up motivating both swing and base voters,” Murphy said, particularly the sweeping health, climate and economic package that Democrats passed after Schumer negotiated one-on-one with moderate Democrat Joe Manchi n of West Virginia, who had singlehandedly killed an earlier version of the legislation. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., who spearheaded bipartisan negotiations on gun legislation. “It’s the year of Chuck Schumer,” said Sen. Raphael Warnock and Republican candidate Herschel Walker, McConnell asserted that Democratic policy failures led to high inflation. In his own election postmortem on Monday, Republican leader Mitch McConnell saw it differently, describing the Democrats’ narrow win in the Senate and still-uncalled House control as confirmation of a “closely divided nation.” Making the case directly to voters in Georgia, who will decide a December runoff between Democratic Sen. I’m going to reject it.’ And the American people saved us.” “American voters said, ‘I don’t like this. 6 Capitol insurrection brought new attention to the attack over the summer, with multiple hearings and images of Trump’s supporters beating up police getting heavy airtime. “We were on the precipice of autocracy gnawing away at our democracy,” said Schumer, who noted that the House committee investigating the Jan. Lastly, he said, voters rejected anti-democratic efforts by Republicans who supported former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the last election.
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