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Insurgent Democratic Candidates Are Ready to Run on Shutdown Betrayal

5 4
14.11.2025

As the shutdown deal between centrist Senate Democrats and Republicans drew fury from the Democratic base, primary candidates for U.S. Senate from Iowa to Maine were quick to call for Sen. Chuck Schumer to go.

In Maine, populist oysterman Graham Platner said Schumer had “failed.” In Iowa, two candidates in the crowded field of Democrats hoping to replace Republican Sen. Joni Ernst likewise called for Schumer’s resignation as Senate minority leader. A third candidate opposed the deal but was noticeably quieter on whether Schumer should bow out, however: Iowa state Rep. Josh Turek has drawn the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee — the establishment fundraising body aligned with Schumer — and the calls for Schumer to resign put him in an awkward spot.

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Key Senate Dem Says Party Caved on Shutdown to Make a Symbolic Point About the GOP

Though Schumer publicly opposed the deal that passed in the Senate on Monday and the House of Representatives on Wednesday, many Democrats are blaming him for failing to corral the party members who crossed the aisle to vote with Republicans on a deal to end the longest government shutdown in American history.

The backlash in Iowa against the deal betrays a larger phenomenon playing out in House and Senate primaries across the country. Moderates and progressives alike are blasting the deal — but candidates without establishment support have been more likely to blame Schumer.

“I wish it was just tactics. I wish it was just strategy. I think it’s actually a difference in worldview.”

These factions have also offered strikingly different analyses of whether the dealmakers’ surrender was merely a tactical failure or a symptom of a deeper rot, which is the contention of Indivisible co-founder Ezra Levin, whose group is making opposition to........

© The Intercept