It seems hard to believe now, but there was a time when Chuck Schumer was an immensely popular politician.

He surged to victory in a contentious Democratic Senate primary in 1998 — one he was in no way fated to win. He unseated Al D’Amato, a durable Republican who had beaten back several Democratic challengers before him. He oversaw the campaign efforts of Senate Democrats in 2006, when Bush Republicans were knocked from power. Within New York, he was famed for visiting every single county every year, and there was never an event too small — or a graduation ceremony too remote — for the indefatigable Schumer to show up. He was retail politics personified. As he will remind you, he has never lost an election: not in the 1970s, and not in the 2020s. And he was even better at the backroom game. Beating out Dick Durbin to take the reins of Senate leadership from Harry Reid, he realized his lifelong dream of becoming, for a period, the Senate majority leader, and was able to marshal through major pieces of environmental and infrastructure legislation with the barest of majorities.

Now, the 75-year-old Schumer looks like he might not be long for political life. This certainly has something to do with his age; in the wake of Joe Biden’s debate-stage meltdown, liberal voters have lost much of their tolerance for elderly politicians. But it also transcends the decades Schumer has spent in the spotlight. No one is telling his fellow James Madison High School alum Bernie Sanders to shuffle off the stage. At 84, Sanders keeps a packed touring schedule and remains in demand as a national........

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