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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer made it crystal clear Wednesday that he wants maverick Sen. John Fetterman to remain a Democrat after the Keystone Stater publicly toyed with leaving the party.
Schumer (D-NY) hailed Fetterman (D-Pa.) as “a very good member of Congress” and downplayed criticism of his colleague from the far-left.
“People in our caucus very much like him and respect him and we’re a big-tent party. We can have a lot of different views in that party,” Schumer told reporters, according to the Hill.
Privately, some Democrats fear that Fetterman could jump ship and become a Republican, complicating their task of flipping a net of four seats to regain control of the Senate in November’s midterm elections.
Some Republicans have made clear that they would be happy to have Fetterman join up.
“We would welcome him,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters last week.
“I have had conversations with him in the past ,as have many of my colleagues, about the challenges he faces in his caucus,” Thune added. “And there are many of us who, I think, would welcome the opportunity to have him join the Republican conference, but ultimately that’s a decision that’s up to him.”
Fetterman initially showed no real interest in defecting, writing in a May Washington Post op-ed that he wouldn’t fit in the GOP due to being “strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bioslop.”
Last month, however, Fetterman caveated that if his party “ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.”
Schumer has also faced the left’s wrath since Democrats were forced into the minority following the 2024 election. In March of last year, he faced uproar over his decision to cut a deal with Republicans to avert a government shutdown.
The Brooklyn Democrat has also shied away from endorsing populist primary candidates in Senate races, opting for “establishment” picks like Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Fetterman and Schumer are both up for re-election in 2028 and both are likely to face well-funded primary challenges from the left.
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