ALBANY, New York \u2014 Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer\u2019s omnipresence in New York state politics has been his calling card for the past three decades \u2014 until now.<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s senior senator has delivered hundreds of college commencement addresses over the years and made countless cameos at everything from parades to road races to strangers\u2019 barbecues. Locally, nothing has defined his brand more than a 26-year streak of annual visits to each of the state\u2019s 62 counties.<\/p>\n
But Schumer has been largely absent of late: He only made official visits to 30 of the 57 counties outside of New York City as Thanksgiving nears and he toned down his presence on the commencement address circuit this spring. The senator has also been anything but a kingmaker in a changing state Democratic party \u2014 notably opting out of endorsing in this year\u2019s New York City mayoral race as Zohran Mamdani drove turnout to levels not seen since the 1960s.<\/p>\n
Democrats across the spectrum attribute his relative absence in the Empire State to the increasingly all-consuming nature of the current Washington landscape. Much of his energy there has been spent negotiating a path out of the federal government shutdown, an effort that isn\u2019t winning him many friends among the party faithful at home.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re in a new moment we\u2019ve never been in before,\u201d said Jasmine Gripper, co-director of the state Working Families Party. \u201cThe reality is I\u2019m not sure if New Yorkers really want Chuck Schumer showing up in their backyards. What I really want to know is that Chuck Schumer is in D.C. fighting to protect our democracy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Those fights in Washington have done nothing to boost his political standing. His vote to keep the government open in March antagonized the left. His refusal to do so in September angered the right. Now, his inability to keep his conference united has upset not just the left, with some progressives calling for his resignation, but has left moderates like Gov. Kathy Hochul fuming over the lack of unity in the conference Schumer leads. That weakness has stoked talk of a potential primary challenge from a younger, more progressive opponent like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.<\/p>\n
If the 74-year-old senator wants to rebound before he potentially seeks a sixth term in 2028 \u2014 which would keep him in office until he\u2019s 84 \u2014 it\u2019s becoming increasingly apparent he\u2019ll need to do so without his traditional style of obsessively local politicking: If the White House eliminates an executive agency on a Friday, for example, Schumer would risk exposing himself to horrible optics if he spent the weekend, say, back in New York fighting to reduce goose droppings<\/a>. Or looking to ban inhalable caffeine<\/a>. Or going to war against metal barbeque brushes<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Schumer\u2019s team has suggested that reading the tea leaves of his schedule too deeply would be misguided.<\/p>\n \u201cCurrent challenges in D.C., including the Trump shutdown, require his presence and leadership,\u201d Schumer spokesman Angelo Roefaro said. \u201cHe is working \u2018round the clock to deliver on behalf of New Yorkers, including the fight for affordable health care \u2014 all while President Trump recklessly attacks everything from the Second Avenue subway and Gateway to Medicaid.\u201d<\/p>\n Critics, however, say it\u2019s evidence he\u2019s slowing down.<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s phasing himself out. I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll run in 2028,\u201d New York GOP chair Ed Cox said. \u201cHe\u2019s getting old and he knows where the country is. He also knows where his party is, and that AOC can easily beat him.\u201d<\/p>\n Chuck Around NY<\/p>\n The most famous form of Schumer\u2019s ubiquitousness has been his practice of crashing college graduation ceremonies every Saturday in June. Countless families have stories. And many of those yarns follow a similar trajectory: like attending a daughter\u2019s commencement in Buffalo and hearing the senator discuss the time he was dumped by a girl and lost a scholarship<\/a> \u2014 then attending their son\u2019s event on Long Island the next year and hearing the same exact speech. He once delivered<\/a> 15 commencement addresses in nine days.<\/p>\n As recently as 2023, social media posts indicate he showed up at Brooklyn College, SUNY Albany, the New York City College of Technology, Hunter College, Fordham Law, SUNY Stony Brook, John Jay and SUNY Cortland. The only mention in student newspapers or on three major social media sites about Schumer\u2019s attendance at a commencement this June came from the Fordham Observer, which reported the regular attendee was \u201cnotably absent<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer\u2019s website tags certain events with a \u201cChuck Around New York\u201d label to showcase his stops around the state that form the basis for his 62 county boast. He spent decades topping 150 news conferences in New York each year. In 2010, he managed to hit 283.<\/p>\n But the number began to drop when he was elevated in the Senate and became Democratic leader in 2017. His highest total since then was 124 stops across the state in 2019.<\/p>\n His local appearances have dropped off even more this year. He was at only 44 official visits in mid-November, on pace for a record low. Those visits cover only 48 percent of the state\u2019s counties with the new year fast approaching. The most recent event listed occurred on Sept. 15.<\/p>\n There are certainly plenty of informal appearances that aren\u2019t included in the tallies of his stops. In the past few months, Schumer has stopped by the Buffalo Bills\u2019 training camp, marched in New York City\u2019s Labor Day Parade, and joined a No Kings Protest. But that\u2019s also true in past years \u2014 and by many anecdotal accounts, these cameos have been less common as the senator is stuck spending time near the Potomac more often than he is near the Hudson.<\/p>\n Roefaro insisted the minority leader has kept busy on the homefront.<\/p>\n \u201cAs he has for every year in the Senate, Senator Schumer continues to crisscross the state\u2019s 62 counties and New York City\u2019s five boroughs,\u201d he said. \u201cThe senator has a track record of success and an indefatigable omnipresence that will continue to power these efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n Sunday presser fatigue\u00a0<\/p>\n The senator often topped 60 percent favorability in polls a decade ago. But that dipped once he became leader, with him hovering for several years with numbers along the lines of 50-38.<\/p>\n This year, he\u2019s hit record lows among numerous pollsters, repeatedly landing with a favorability rating closer to 35 percent.<\/p>\n \u201cThere was a large percentage of Republicans who liked Chuck Schumer,\u201d Siena spokesman Steve Greenberg said. \u201cBut once he became minority leader, he was seen \u2014 understandably so \u2014 as a much more partisan figure, and as a result lost a lot of Republicans.\u201d<\/p>\n Schumer\u2019s favorability among Republicans has fallen from 49-39 to 22-71 over the past decade. He\u2019s seen a nearly equal drop among Democrats too: The senator has gone from 73-16 to 47-42.<\/p>\n Democrats are now also judging Schumer largely based on his role as it pertains to the White House. And it\u2019s clear plenty in his own party aren\u2019t happy: He canceled a book tour in the spring over \u201csecurity concerns<\/a>\u201d once progressives started assailing him for his role in advancing a Republican funding plan, and he wasbooed at the Metropolitan Opera<\/a> in September for not supporting Mamdani.<\/p>\n All of it adds up to a tougher landscape to engage in the retail politicking that has driven his success for so long.<\/p>\n Schumer was once widely known as the man who invented the Sunday press conference<\/a>. Whether he was spending the end of the weekend in Chateaugay bemoaning an attempt<\/a> to trademark the word \u201cparmesan,\u201d or announcing millions of dollars of transportation funding on Long Island, he found ways to dominate the news cycle on a day when not much else was happening.<\/p>\n His last \u201cChuck Around New York\u201d appearance in New York on a Sunday came when he attended Rep. George Latimer\u2019s ceremonial oath of office in January.<\/p>\n Fast forward to the fall, and the political headaches have only mounted for Schumer.<\/p>\n Perhaps the biggest takeaway of last week\u2019s elections is that New York City Democrats are open to a generational shift in leadership. Schumer hails from two political generations ago \u2014 New Year\u2019s Day, 1975, his first in the state Assembly, was the same day Mario Cuomo began his career in state government. That was 17 years before Mamdani was born.<\/p>\n And the Mamdani faction certainly isn\u2019t rushing to embrace the minority leader.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gotta go,\u201d the mayor-elect said when asked by POLITICO<\/a> last week whether Schumer should face a 2028 challenge.<\/p>\n