Chuck Schumer just admitted the unthinkable.
With Democrats heading for a big midterm loss, he’s now playing the blame game.
And now, Schumer is under fire within his own party for openly saying that Biden is about to lose control of Congress.
With the November 2022 midterm elections just around the corner, reporters and betting markets alike are weighing in on the odds of a Red Wave sweeping over Congress.
But while the battle for control of the U.S. Senate remains a complete tossup, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Democrats are destined to lose their majority in the House of Representatives.
That’s the message Chuck Schumer is signaling to the public this month as he publicly admits that the Democrats’ House majority is likely doomed.
But Schumer’s extremely pessimistic view of the Democrats’ November chances is now coming under fire from members of his own party, who claim that the Senate Democrat leader is sabotaging the party’s efforts to keep control of both chambers of Congress.
The New York Post reports, “Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer was overheard telling fellow lawmakers this week that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is “in trouble” and Democrats will likely lose the House in November’s midterm elections, according to a new report. The Brooklyn Democrat is said to have told his colleagues that if the election were held now, there was “a 60% chance we hold the Senate and a 40% chance we hold the House.”
While Schumer is much more optimistic about his party’s chances of winning control of the Senate, Schumer’s comments about Democrats only having a “40% chance” in the House signals an extreme degree of pessimism that party leaders rarely admit in public.
In 2014, ahead of a nationwide backlash against Barack Obama, Pelosi herself was publicly arguing well into the Fall campaign season that Democrats would pick up seats in the House and hold control of the Senate, despite the fact that neither event came even remotely close to happening once all the ballots were counted.
Such rosy predictions are routinely spouted by members of party leadership to keep morale high.
But Schumer’s gloomy outlook for Democrats marks a break with that tradition.
And yet, despite Schumer giving Democrats a “60% chance” of holding the Senate, he still knows the party faces an uphill battle in November.
“A source told the Associated Press that Schumer was doling out $5 million to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and distributing much of the remaining $10 million among nine candidates — four incumbent Democratic senators and five Democratic challengers in battleground states,” adds The New York Post.
Currently, the election forecaster 538 predicts that Democrats have around a 70% chance of holding control of the Senate this year.
But 538’s modeling has fluctuated significantly over the past few months, and what’s more, the same model gives Democrats a less than 30% chance of holding on to the House of Representatives.
This means that Schumer’s prediction is likely to be correct, at least when it comes to Pelosi’s own political future.