Inside and outside the Senate, Democrats begin to lose faith in Schumer

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

45% : The legislation, according to the Democratic leadership, is designed to combat Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) by preventing unlawful access to the Treasury Department's payment systems.
39% : Option two: enable a shutdown which could have stretched on indefinitely while Trump officials flexed executive authority over spending in ways they would find even more devastating, not to mention leaving tens of thousands of federal workers without pay and millions more without services.
39% : Schumer believes he's the one really grappling with the reality of Trump US President Donald Trump and Tesla CEO Elon Musk speak to the press as they stand next to a Tesla vehicle on the South Portico of the White House on March 11, 2025 in Washington, DC. Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images Schumer sees what he did, by contrast, as truly grappling with how different Trump is as a president now, versus when they had their showdown fights in his first term.
38% : But it didn't have to be this much of an 'L'." Losing some faith in the Senate, much more outside the Senate As Trump got exactly the bill he wanted while losing only two Republican votes combined between the House and Senate, Schumer has lost faith among several of his Democratic senators for being able to manage the fights ahead.
35% : But, many say, it was Schumer's leadership that left them looking and feeling even worse -- and with much less leverage for future fight, now that Senate Republicans saw how easy it was to write what Trump wants into the bills, make no effort to reach out to Democrats, and watch them be the ones to attack each other.
35% : " Others sympathetic to Schumer and Gillibrand argued to CNN that it's hard to believe the intricacies of a procedural vote in March 2025 will really shape the 2026 midterms, especially because by the fall Democrats are expecting Republicans to push through a bill to enact much of Trump's agenda that includes sweeping tax cuts and deep spending reductions on programs like Medicare without requiring a single Democratic vote, which they think will unify both Democratic officials and their supporters.
32% : "Once you shut down the government, it is totally up to DOGE and Trump and Musk how long we're in shutdown," Schumer said in an interview with Jake Tapper on CNN on Friday evening.
32% : By then, Schumer would be 77, in Washington for as long as Joe Biden had been when he was elected president, and have weathered years of compromises with Trump.
28% : They think Schumer never understood Jeffries's strategy was to push for the fight since he was convinced Democrats could win, and worried about the policy and political consequences of putting a rubber stamp on the Republican bill.
24% : Then, Schumer said repeatedly in conversations, Trump wasn't looking for pretexts to fire federal government workers.
23% : " Republicans "own the pain that will result from this Continuing Resolution, and they will own the disastrous effects of cutting Medicaid and Social Security -- which they call a Ponzi scheme.
18% : "We could have been in shutdown for months, and why did Musk and Trump want to shut down?
11% : Several close to Jeffries himself, meanwhile, scoff at Schumer's suggesting that House Democrats didn't think Johnson would pass the bill, arguing the senator doesn't get how much obedience to Trump has come to define Republicans in Congress.

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