A progressive House member from Chicago is calling on Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to step down from his leadership position, joining a growing list of fellow Democrats to air that view after he allowed a vote on a Republican spending plan to avoid a government shutdown.

Rep. Delia Ramirez said Wednesday that Schumer should have used the leverage of a potential shutdown to push back against President Donald Trump and a spending plan that would make additional cuts to programs and a government workforce already reeling from the work of Elon Musk and the Department of Government Efficiency.

“This is a moment for Democrats to do more than just talk about fighting or obstructing Donald Trump’s agenda of destroying Social Security and Medicaid, but actually using every legislative authority to do that,” Ramirez said in an interview.

The lawmaker is one of an increasing number of House members to criticize Schumer or say he should step down, a list that may grow as they hold town halls during the recess. So far, none of the minority leader’s Senate colleagues have publicly echoed that view.

A person at a town hall broached the subject Tuesday with Ramirez, asking whether she believed that Schumer should lose his minority leader position. The representative, first elected in 2018, smiled, nodded and answered “yes” before handing off the microphone.

“I said yes, because what I wholeheartedly believe is that, in this precise moment, our constituents are asking us to be the kind of leaders that are going to truly hear our constituents and to make the hard decisions of stepping in and having the courage to do everything we can to hold the line,” Ramirez told POLITICO.

Nearly every Democratic member voted against the Republican plan in the House in a display of unity under House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. Schumer has said the spending resolution was a “terrible” bill but that a shutdown would have only empowered Trump and Musk to accelerate the firing of federal workers and slashing of public agencies.

The veteran New York senator has said he has no plans to step down even as the criticism mounts.

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a longtime Schumer ally, said Tuesday she still supports him but faulted him in unusually blunt terms for what she viewed as giving up leverage in a fight with Republicans. The same day, Democratic Rep. Glenn Iveytold a town hall in Suitland, Maryland, a Washington suburb that is home to many government workers, that Schumer should consider stepping down from his post.

Ramirez, whose view on the minority leader was first reported by Axios, said her criticism is rooted in what she has heard from constituents.

“What I heard from every person that came through that line, in addition to the people that I talked to after, was we are not happy where the Democratic leadership is,” she said. “We believe that you all should do more.”

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Congressional Democrats — who were hoping to blast Republicans over budget cuts — instead took incoming from their exasperated constituents when they traveled home to host town halls.

In Arizona, Sens. Ruben Gallego and Mark Kelly were confronted at a joint forum Monday by an attendee demanding to know if they “would support removing” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer. In Oregon, an audience member told Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Janelle Bynum on Sunday that he is “so pissed off right now at the leadership in the United States Senate that they are not willing to step up and fight.”

“Schumer has done what I think is the most destructive thing that he could possibly do as Democratic leader,” another cried on Saturday to Sen. Peter Welch of Vermont.

And those reactions were relatively mild compared to the scene that played out in the Washington suburbs Tuesday night when Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.) held a town hall.

“You’re not fighting!” one woman shouted from the balcony, before being escorted out. “We are suffering!”

If Democrats were wondering where their 2017-era grassroots resistance army had gone, they’ve found their answer. Schumer’s willingness to vote with Republicans to advance a spending bill — and avoid a shutdown — has enraged the Democratic faithful not just in Washington, but across the nation. The blast radius is spreading throughout the party, far beyond Schumer.

In testy exchanges, town hall attendees pressed congressional Democrats to stop trying to strike compromises with Republicans, to adopt a stance that matches the gravity of the moment and to cease using court rulings or the midterms as their solution. What many hoped could have been a unifying force — a principle-driven government shutdown — exposed deep cleavages in a party still smarting from widespread losses last fall.

“If you’re Chuck Schumer, you’re wondering, ‘Why aren’t you screaming at Trump? Why aren’t you angry at the Republicans?’” said former Democratic Rep. Tom Malinowski, who began a town hall last week in his old New Jersey district just as news broke of Schumer’s decision. “We could ride that anger in two years to take back the House and the Senate. But most Democrats worry that we can’t wait for two years.”

Malinowski held the event because the GOP incumbent who ousted him would not.

It was only weeks ago that House Republicans were facing their own rowdy forums as constituents and liberal grassroots groups protested Elon Musk’s attempt to dismantle the federal government. In response, the House GOP campaign chief urged them to stop holding in-person town halls.

Democrats seized on that hesitance, organizing their own events as a contrast. National Democratic groups even organized a tour to hold town halls in the districts of GOP Congress members who refused to schedule any themselves.

But the congressional recess kicked off with Schumer’s announcement that he would vote to advance the GOP bill to fund the government. And so congressional Democrats returned home to voters exasperated not just by Republicans, but also by their own party’s leadership.

Two local progressive groups organized “empty chair” town halls to be held later this week in the districts of Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) and Sen. John Fetterman (D-Pa.), who both helped enact Republicans’ spending bill.

At the town halls that Democrats did hold, plenty of attendees expressed frustration with Trump, Musk and the GOP-controlled Congress. But voters also critiqued the Democratic party, according to a review of video, audio and local news reports of town halls in Arizona, Oregon, New Jersey, Maryland, Massachusetts, Illinois and Vermont.

Democrats hosting the events fielded the barbs differently.

In Maryland, Ivey initially won over the crowd gathered Tuesday in a high school auditorium when he suggested “it may be time” for Schumer to step aside.

But the event grew more raucous as anger built over Ivey’s repeated pivots to declaring the courts to be the best bulwark against Trump, while looking ahead to the midterms – some 20 months from now – as Democrats’ most efficient tool to thwart the administration.

Barbra Bearden, a recently fired federal employee, tersely told Ivey: “Don’t talk to me about the courts, don’t talk to me about the next election … I came here to find out what my congressman is specifically doing.”

Similar to Ivey, Rep. Delia Ramirez (D-Ill.) nodded and said “yes” when asked by a town hall attendee if Schumer should “retire or step down.”

In Arizona, when an attendee demanded to know if the senators would support ousting Schumer, Gallego deflected. “We’re focusing on this right now,” he said before turning to address Spanish-speaking voters and media.

Others pleaded with their constituents to stay united.

In Oregon, Wyden said he prepared to field questions about Schumer’s future and rose early in the morning pondering his response. “Trump would love to be able to bait Americans over various distractions and I would just ask please, please don’t fall for it,” he said, declining to directly address whether the minority leader should be deposed.

And in Vermont, when Welch acknowledged fears that a shutdown could make it easier for Musk to continue his “destructive work,” a constituent interrupted to voice skepticism.

“I understand you don’t buy it,” Welch said, later pleading: “We have to get over the fact that we lost in that particular debate and not turn our ally, who just has a reasonable disagreement with us, into the enemy.”

With Congress in recess, Schumer this week has embarked on a charm offensive aimed at improving his public standing.

Yet he is doing so from the comfort of a television studio rather than taking the risk of any close up and sustained encounters with a seething activist base. Citing “security concerns,” Schumer canceled public appearances in Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York this week for “Antisemitism in America: A Warning,” his newly released book.

During an appearance on “The View” Tuesday, Schumer sought to not just explain his rationale for backing the Republican-drafted funding measure, but project confidence that he will maintain his grip on leadership of the Senate Democrats.

“When you’re a leader, if you see a real crisis a little bit down the road, your job is to stand up and say, ‘We cannot do that.’ And that’s what I did,” Schumer said.

When host Alyssa Farah Griffin, a Republican, asked if it was time to step down, Schumer was unequivocal in his response.

“When we don’t have a president, we have a lot of leaders,” the embattled Brooklynite said. “We have a lot of really strong talent in the Senate, in the House, in the governors, we have a great bench. But as far as the Senate caucus, of which I’m the leader — I should be the leader.”

That is far from a consensus view within the party. Democratic strategist Aisha Mills suggested the lingering anguish over the funding measure exposed a widening gap between elected officials and the activist base.

“He didn’t have the fight that we really as Democrats wanted and needed him to as a leader,” Mills said of Schumer. “It felt like a bit of a cop out.”

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A normally even-keeled Democratic congressman wants Chuck Schumer to feel the heat. If the Senate minority leader doesn’t adopt a tougher line in the next big Washington negotiation, Rep. Glenn Ivey said, “maybe he needs to go.”

Ivey spoke to POLITICO Wednesday morning, hours after facing a raucous town hall in his suburban Washington district, where he first suggested that Schumer should consider stepping aside. Ivey expanded on his view of the top Senate Democrat — and delivered an ultimatum amid the widespread frustration with the party leadership’s approach to opposing President Donald Trump.

“If he can get himself together and come — you know, get right on this vote and we get another shot at it, okay,” Ivey said. “But if he’s going to do the same thing again when this bill comes up six months from now, we can’t afford that.”

Ivey, a second-term Congress and member of the House Appropriations Committee, expressed confidence in his own caucus leader, New York Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, who was able to persuade all but one Democrat in the House to vote against a Republican-drafted spending bill. But Ivey said the fissures that were exposed when the two Democratic leaders took separate approaches to measure were unacceptable and can’t happen again.

“We’ve got a limited number of shots at being able to fight back against the Trump administration and what they’re doing,” Ivey continued. “We can’t afford to miss the moment again.”

“Hakeem met the moment last week,” he added. “Schumer missed it.”During Ivey’s town hall Tuesday inside a crowded high school auditorium, he faced a series of pointed questions about Democrats’ ability to push back on the Trump administration, as well as his own ability to fight for his constituents — many of whom identified themselves as federal workers or contractors impacted by the Trump administration’s mass firings and tech billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to slash government spending. They also lobbed broader questions over why the party doesn’t have a clear strategy.

A few jeered when Ivey repeatedly pointed to the midterm elections next year as the party’s best opportunity to constrain Trump. This enraged some in the crowd, with some heading for the exits before the town hall officially wrapped, telling this reporter on the way out the door that they weren’t hearing enough.

Ivey pushed back on those characterizations, which rankled many in the audience. The congressman, whose district includes much of majority-Black Prince George’s County, said he understood the frustration from constituents, but reiterated there are few levers for Democrats to pull while they are in the House minority.

During the interview, he praised several House Democrats for taking the lead in standing up to Trump and pushing party leaders to fight hard. They included Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, as well as Rep. Gerry Connolly of Virginia, the top Oversight Committee Democrat, and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. Ivey admitted these elected officials don’t always exhibit the type of “fire and brimstone kind of stuff” some in the Democratic base want to see.

“Everybody doesn’t have to do the same temperament, everybody doesn’t have to do the same messaging,” he said, “as long as they’re doing what they need to do to win their seats.”

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The Senate Democratic leader said it himself on cable news on Tuesday night. By siding with Republicans on the government funding bill, Chuck Schumer knew members of his own party would come out against him.

But what may have not have been expected was how quickly the criticism spread beyond the left flank.

Just this week, Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland told constituents “it may be time for the Senate Democrats to get a new leader,”Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz aired frustrations, and one of Schumer’s longtime allies, former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, dropped the hammer on him.

“I myself don’t give away anything for nothing,” Pelosi told reporters Tuesday during a news conference at a children’s hospital in San Francisco, her second time addressing Schumer’s vote. “I think that’s what happened the other day.”

Five days after the vote, Schumer bashing is going mainstream — continuing a drumbeat of criticism that first started when he announced he would join Republicans, eight other Democrats and one independent, to advance the bill to fund the government.

What began with activist groups and progressive members of Congress, has moved toward both the party’s political center and the nation’s heartland – including to possible 2028 contenders. The criticism comes as the party struggles to find ways to push back against a Republican stranglehold on power in Washington.

Illinois’ Pritzker said “I disagree with what he did and vehemently so,” following a talk at the Center for American Progress. Walz, the former vice presidential nominee, said Democrats “gave up their leverage” in an appearance on California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s podcast.

And then there was Pelosi.

By piling on Tuesday, Pelosi “gave everybody a permission slip to carry on,” said one Democratic strategist, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the situation.

And they did.

“I respect Chuck Schumer. I think he had a great, long-standing career,” Ivey (D-Md.) told an audience that included many government workers Tuesday night. “But I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to get a new leader.”

In an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Hayes Tuesday night, Schumer not only defended his decision as necessary to prevent the hurt a shutdown would bring to American workers, but also touted his own political prowess.

“I’m a smart politician, I can read what people want,” Schumer said, emphasizing that a while Republicans put forward a “terrible, terrible, bill,” a shutdown would have been “so much worse.”

“I couldn’t tolerate it, I couldn’t live with it,” he added.

He isn’t the only Democrat making the calculation — about the bill or his political standing. In Pelosi’s home state, Darry Sragow, a Democratic strategist, insists that these types of disagreements are just business as usual for Democrats.

“That’s just what we do,” he said. “You know, we’re this dysfunctional family that agrees on one thing; and that is that we want to protect the interests of ordinary, working Americans.”

Schumer hit cable again Wednesday morning, working to shift the focus to the party’s messaging against President Donald Trump.

“Now we can really go after him, let the public know who he is,” Schumer said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.” “Once they know who he is, show them what we have done and want to do.”

Schumer’s Senate colleagues, too, are quick to dismiss the idea that he should be removed as leader. But even some of them have expressed concern that members need more guidance.

Appearing on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) said Schumer “can lead the caucus.”

However, he added, Democrats “need to have a conversation inside the caucus about whether we are willing to stand up to Republicans.”

Danny Nguyen contributed to this report.

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Add another member of Congress to the list of angry Democrats saying it might be time Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer to call it quits.

Rep. Glenn Ivey, who represents a deep-blue Maryland district just outside Washington, faced voters at a town hall Tuesday and said he shares their frustration with President Donald Trump’s cuts to the government — and with Schumer for allowing a vote on a Republican spending plan.

“I respect Chuck Schumer. I think he had a great, long-standing career,” Ivey told an audience that included many government workers. “But I’m afraid that it may be time for the Senate Democrats to get a new leader.”

His criticism reflects what appears to be growing division among Democrats over how to resist the sweeping cuts imposed by Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency.

Democratic elected leaders and members of the public have expressed outrage in recent days over Schumer’s decision to avoid a government shutdown by agreeing to a vote on a Republican plan that would allow Trump to make more cuts.

Ivey, like all but one of the chamber’s Democrats, voted against the spending plan in the House — a show of unity orchestrated by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries that did not hold in the Senate.

“I think Hakeem Jeffries will continue to hold the House Democratic Caucus together. He’s done it over and over and over again on these major bills,” Ivey said. “If we can make sure that we get the right leadership in the Senate to get it done this time and hold them together and vote with the House Democrats, we can actually have an impact.”

A lawyer by training and the patriarch of a powerful political family in Prince George’s County, the congressman was repeatedly shouted down by people at the town hall demanding action against Trump and Musk.

“Answer the question!” one person yelled from the balcony of a crowded high school auditorium as he responded to a question about helping fired federal workers get their jobs back.

Several people jeered at Ivey: “What are you doing now!?” as Ivey mentioned court challenges to administration actions and said the best time to fight back would be in the midterm elections of 2026.

His criticism of Schumer comes after a rough few days for the minority leader in which even longtime supporters have taken swipes at him. Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi suggested Tuesday he had forfeited his leverage by allowing the vote though she still supports him.

A Schumer spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request to comment on Ivey’s remark. But the minority leader, who canceled a tour to promote his book “Antisemitism in America: A Warning” as protests were being organized against him, has shrugged off the criticism.

The minority leader told MSNBC on Tuesday that even though the Republican spending resolution was a “terrible, terrible bill,” he felt that a government shutdown would have been worse.

“I knew when I made this decision I’d get a lot of flack,” Schumer said. “I’m a smart politician, I can read what people want.”

A government shutdown, he said, would have done “such damage” to the country. “I couldn’t tolerate it,” he said. “I couldn’t live with it.”

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WestExec Advisors has long operated as an exclusive Washington consulting firm known for its meteoric rise and lineup of heavy-hitter Democrats and former national security officials.

But its business is something of a black box. Because it technically doesn’t directly advocate on behalf of clients — i.e., lobby — WestExec doesn’t have to disclose who is paying them and for what.

POLITICO, however, has gotten a peek at some clients that previously worked with WestExec in recent years before departing. They include software giant Palantir Technologies, Japanese investment company SoftBank Group, semiconductor manufacturer GlobalFoundries and South Korean conglomerate Samsung, according to six people directly familiar with the matter.

Each company had worked with WestExec for at least a few years, according to the people, who were granted anonymity to discuss sensitive information. All of the clients have ended their contracts since November.

Several of the companies that previously worked with WestExec have signed on with lobbying firms touting their supposed access to President Donald Trump — a reflection of anxiety within Washington’s power landscape over how to navigate an administration not particularly amenable to the ordinary ways of D.C.’s influence business.

While WestExec emphasizes that it is nonpartisan, its founders all worked in the Obama administration. Michèle Flournoy, Sergio Aguirre and Nitin Chadda are all co-founders who remain with the firm as managing partners. Former CIA director John Brennan is a principal and former Obama senior State department official Richard Stengel and former Bill Clinton Middle East envoy Amb. Dennis Ross are also senior advisers.

Biden also plucked several WestExec bigwigs — including co-founder Antony Blinken, Avril Haines and Jen Psaki — for posts in his administration. Those moves drew scrutiny at the time over potential conflicts of interest involving its unrevealed clients. POLITICO noted in 2020 that many of the administration picks were not bound by the Biden transition’s restrictions on hiring people who had lobbied in the past year.

Some of the clients that recently left WestExec said that they were specifically seeking connections with firms that have a more direct line to the Trump administration. One said it had a desire to “put our resources elsewhere.” Palantir and SoftBank have in recent months signed contracts with Miller Strategies, the lobbying firm headed up by top Trump fundraiser Jeff Miller. Samsung, meanwhile, is “actively seeking experts with strong ties to Trump,” according to the Korea Herald.

A WestExec spokesperson, who asked not to be named, said that because it’s not a lobbying shop, its business isn’t at the whim of which party controls Washington. The spokesperson said that WestExec provides analysis and strategic advice for companies trying to navigate a complicated geopolitical and policy landscape.

“WestExec remains one of the world’s leading strategic advisory firms — growing every year since our founding [in 2017] regardless of who occupies the White House. We are not a lobbying firm. Our dozens of principals and senior advisors — largely comprised of former senior government officials from both parties as well as military and industry leaders — provide insightful analysis and strategic counsel for companies trying to navigate a dynamic geopolitical, regulatory and policy landscape,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

“Of course, our substantial client roster evolves as corporate challenges are solved and needs change, but we had a record year in 2024 and are on pace for similar growth in 2025, having signed several new clients since the new year. That’s because good business advice isn’t partisan.”

A person familiar with the firm said Samsung and GlobalFoundries had a change in priorities that led those clients to leave, and that Palantir’s departure was a mutual decision. A person familiar with SoftBank’s decision said the company changed consultants to align with the new administration.

While WestExec officials insist their business doesn’t depend on Democrats being in power, they have been fielding calls from Republican-linked lobbying firms inquiring about forging a partnership, according to the person familiar with the firm.

A spokesperson for Palantir declined to comment, and spokespeople for GlobalFoundries, Samsung and SoftBank didn’t respond to requests for comment.

It isn’t a shock that companies would part ways with a traditionally Democratic-leaning firm in favor of doing business with Republican-aligned outfits. A handful of lobbying firms linked to former President Joe Biden have lost significant business since the election, as POLITICO Influence has previously reported. But the confidentiality surrounding the clients of WestExec and other strategic advisory firms makes the revelation of departed clients notable.

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JB Pritzker criticized Chuck Schumer and declined to say whether he should continue leading Senate Democrats amid an escalating internal crisis over the party’s strategy in the second Trump presidency.

Schumer joined Republicans in voting to avert a government shutdown last week, infuriating broad swaths of the left — and leading to calls for him to step down as Senate Democratic leader — for declining to use leverage in the spending fight to oppose Donald Trump’s agenda.

Pritzker, a high-profile governor and Democratic operator, chose not to publicly extend a life raft to Schumer when asked about the senator’s future.

“Look, he’s the elected leader,” Pritzker told reporters after a sit-down at the Center for American Progress in Washington. “I disagree with what he did and vehemently so. But I also know that he has done good work as a Senate leader in other ways.”

During the event, Pritzker praised Illinois Sen. Tammy Duckworth for voting no on the measure and didn’t mention the state’s other senator, Dick Durbin, who voted with Schumer to advance the spending bill.

Still, he added, “having an internecine war in the Democratic Party does not help anyone,” indicating he hoped Schumer would “stand up for the values” they share.

Pritzker’s slight is particularly notable as the New York senator faces intense intra-party criticism from Democratic-aligned groups in the wake of the spending fight.

This isn’t the first time Pritzker has questioned Schumer’s strategy. Pritzker and other Democratic governors had pushed Schumer earlier this year to unite Senate Democrats in opposition to Donald Trump. Schumer’s decision to join Republicans in advancing a funding bill — despite nearly all House Democrats, and most Senate Democrats, opposing it — threatens to tear open a rift between Democratic leaders over the party’s strategy in the second Trump presidency.

Center for American Progress CEO Neera Tanden repeatedly called Pritzker a “fighter” in her introduction to the event, the first in a high-profile series of interviews with Democratic figures that the think tank tends to hold between campaign cycles and is an early indicator of movers and shakers in the party.

“Gov. Pritzker does not cower to bullies,” said Tanden, a veteran Democratic political consultant who recently returned to the Center for American Progress after a stint in former President Joe Biden’s administration.

The Illinois governor’s interview in Washington comes as other presidential hopefuls are positioning themselves for a newly leaderless Democratic Party. California Gov. Gavin Newsom is making overtures to the MAGA base with a new podcast series and former Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz is touring red districts with his own town halls. (Walz also took a shot at Schumer’s decision, saying in an episode of Newsom’s podcast released Tuesday that “we gave up our leverage.”)

But most of Pritzker’s criticism remained focused on Trump, with the governor calling Elon Musk “President Musk,” an emerging Democratic attack on the tech billionaire’s efforts to slash government spending. He also touted his talking points around boosting pocketbook issues before a wonky, policy-focused audience.

And he offered a more subtle dig against Republican members of Congress for being unwilling to stand up to Trump.

“Congress is dysfunctional and so dysfunctional now because people are just cowed by this administration,” Pritzker said. “They’re concerned about being primaried.”

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There’s never been a better time to be a disgraced politician seeking a second chance.

A pair of former governors who resigned in scandal are vying to lead major cities on both sides of the Hudson River — attempted comebacks that wager voters fed up with existing options will value their executive experience more than their political flaws.

Former New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, who stepped down in 2021 following sexual harassment allegations, just launched his campaign for mayor of New York City. Former New Jersey Gov. Jim McGreevey, who exited office in 2004 after admitting to an extramarital affair with a man who he hired, is campaigning to lead New Jersey’s second largest city, Jersey City.

While both are Democrats, they are likely to benefit from the Donald Trump effect, where expectations around character have been obliterated.

For their part, neither campaign is eager to acknowledge the other, but both former governors say they are selling executive experience. McGreevey and Cuomo are both talking about bread-and-butter issues: public safety, clean streets, affordable housing and the menace of e-bikes.

“I think folks want a record of getting something done and working hard,” McGreevey said in an interview.

Cuomo is sounding a similar note about experience as a chief executive.

“I don’t think there’s been a governor in modern political history that has accomplished more things than I have accomplished,” Cuomo said during an interview with Stephen A. Smith.

Cuomo also explicitly attacked others who “never ran anything before.” McGreevey has said governors and mayors share “the need to get something done, to bring measurable change.”

It’s hard not to see these as digs at recent big city Democratic mayors who have fumbled their way into infamy with one thing in common: they were legislators, not executives, before becoming mayor. That list includes New York Mayor Eric Adams, his predecessor Bill de Blasio, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass and defeated San Francisco Mayor London Breed.

It goes without saying, none of McGreevey or Cuomo’s opponents has the same kind of executive experience they have, even if it didn’t end well.

“Their reputation certainly precedes them, right?” said Micah Rasmussen, a former McGreevey aide who is now the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University.

It is unusual for governors to be forced out of office. Of the few thousand people who have served as an American governor, Cuomo was only the 56th to resign or be removed, according to the Pew Research Center.

Some in that club have tried to reboot their political careers, to mixed success. Others — Rod Blagojevich of Illinois and Robert Bentley of Alabama — were legally barred from running for elected office.

While McGreevey resigned with a speech remembered for the line “I am a gay American,” and his fall is often tied solely to his sexual orientation in an era before more widespread acceptance, he was involved in a mix of scandals at the time, most notably putting his lover on the state payroll as a homeland security adviser in the months after 9/11 without proper credentials.

After he stepped down, McGreevey went on a spiritual journey and spent more than a decade helping prisoners reenter society. His campaign launch video in 2023, titled “Second Chances,” opened with a scene of his resignation speech and a contrite McGreevey of today saying he’d learned his lessons.

Cuomo, by contrast, spent the past few years fighting in court to clear his name and launched his campaign with a 17-minute video that only briefly alluded to the scandal that prompted him to step down — a report released by Attorney General Letitia James found he sexually harassed 11 women. His leadership during Covid-19 also came under a cloud.

Cuomo has denied any wrongdoing on both counts and argued the scandals were induced by his many political enemies in New York and Washington. District attorneys subsequently did not bring criminal charges.

Basil Smikle Jr., a former head of the New York Democratic Party under Cuomo, said former politicians who leave office under a cloud make another go at it by waiting for the right time and doing a mea culpa tour to test the waters. Plus, Trump — who was impeached twice, found liable for sexual abuse and is a convicted felon — has shown certain behavior is more palatable to voters.

McGreevey is running for an open seat in a nonpartisan general election this fall with backing of a major North Jersey power broker.

Cuomo is running in a crowded primary field against Adams, who is under indictment, surrounded by scandal and with polling that shows most voters want Adams to resign. Another opponent, Scott Stringer, was a front-runner in the crowded 2021 Democratic primary before his campaign was derailed by accusations that he sexually harassed a campaign volunteer 20 years earlier. Stringer denied wrongdoing and is suing the woman who accused him for defamation.

Smikle said Cuomo may also be counting on some of the same Black and Hispanic Democrats who moved toward Trump last fall.

“I think the Trump voter and the potential Cuomo voter want the same thing — there is an interest in political disruption, they are OK with overlooking the past if they can get the disruption that helps them today,” he said.

The governor-to-mayor pipeline is not unprecedented for those who didn’t leave in scandal: Term-limited Delaware Gov. John Carney is now mayor of Wilmington.

If, as former New York Gov. David Paterson has said, Cuomo would rather be governor again, there is some precedent in former California Gov. Jerry Brown, who like Cuomo was a governor’s son. After Brown led his state for eight years as a young man, his political future looked bleak following a trio of failed presidential bids. But then Brown ran for mayor of Oakland, won, and climbed back up the ladder to end his career as governor again.

When Cuomo and McGreevey reemerged, both Democrats had major establishment allies.

The city’s carpenter’s union and Rep. Ritchie Torres, a high-profile Democrat, are in Cuomo’s corner. Torres has said the city needs a “Mr. Tough Guy.”

McGreevey was encouraged to run by Hudson County power broker Brian Stack, who is also a state senator and mayor of neighboring Union City.

While both McGreevey and Cuomo have roots in the cities they are running to lead, both men spent years elsewhere, and both have been criticized for carpetbagging and me-centric campaigns.

When McGreevey launched his campaign in 2023, campaign rival Bill O’Dea said his campaign would be “about the people,” not “anything related to my own ego,” a jab at McGreevey.

Stringer, a former city comptroller and mayoral candidate, compared Cuomo to disgraced former state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, who tried to resurrect his career with a run for city comptroller but lost to Stringer.

Rasmussen, who was McGreevey’s spokesperson through the resignation, wonders if the collapse of local media has something to do with governors playing in local races because it’s “harder and harder for candidates to break through” and governors already come with name recognition — even if the names are a double-edged sword.

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Chuck Schumer is facing one of the most perilous moments of his Senate leadership career.

The Senate minority leader came under heavy fire for the second straight day from Democrats enraged at him for backing a Republican bill to avoid a government shutdown, and fallout appears likely to last well past Friday’s vote.

A handful of House lawmakers, including some in battleground districts, are floating supporting a primary challenge against him. Activists are organizing efforts to punish him financially. Schumer is facing questions within his own caucus about whether he made strategic errors in handling the high-stakes moment and failed to outline a clear plan about how to deal with the complex politics of a shutdown, according to interviews with six lawmakers or their aides. Some Democratic senators are even privately questioning whether he should stay on as their leader.

“He’s done a great deal of damage to the party,” said Ezra Levin, co-founder of the liberal group Indivisible, which has scheduled an emergency call Saturday with its New York chapter and other local leaders to “seriously consider if the current [Democratic] leadership is equipped to handle the moment we’re in.”

In a remarkable sign of how deep the intraparty frustration with Schumer runs, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries refused to throw his fellow New Yorker a life raft. Asked by reporters on Friday if there should be new leadership in the Senate, he said, “Next question.”

Schumer’s one-time partner, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), went so far as to urge senators to vote against his position, saying that “this false choice that some are buying instead of fighting is unacceptable.” And dozens of House Democrats sent a sharply worded letter to Schumer Friday, which expressed “strong opposition” to his standpoint, arguing that the “American people sent Democrats to Congress to fight against Republican dysfunction and chaos” and that the party should not be “capitulating to their obstruction.”

Though several senators said they supported his leadership, some Senate Democrats avoided questions when asked directly Friday about whether they continued to support him in the role.

“We still have more to play out on this,” said Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.). “So I’m not really thinking about the big-picture politics.”

Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis.) also dodged, saying: “The leader I don’t have confidence in is Donald Trump.” And Sen. Ruben Gallego (D-Ariz.) responded to a query on whether he still supports Schumer by calling for a “good post-mortem” on Senate Democrats’ approach to the government funding fight.

“Anytime you have a failure — and this is a failure altogether — we as a caucus owe it to Democrats across the country and our constituents to look back and see: How do we get ourselves into this situation?” he said.

One Democratic senator granted anonymity to share private discussions said conversations are starting about whether Schumer should be their leader going forward.

“There’s a lot of concern about the failure to have a plan and execute on it,” the senator said. “It’s not like you couldn’t figure out that this is what was going to happen.”

The frustration toward Schumer reflects a boiling anger among Democrats over what they view as their party’s lack of a strategy for taking on Trump in his second term. Though few in Democratic circles think Schumer’s job as minority leader is at risk — and he isn’t up for reelection until 2028 — the frustration toward him spans the party’s spectrum, from moderates to progressives, both in and outside of Congress.

Schumer has defended his vote to keep the government running as the best of two bad choices aimed at not ceding Trump and billionaire adviser Elon Musk even more power to slash the government. Nine Democratic senators and an independent who caucuses with Democrats joined him to advance the bill, enough to prevent a government shutdown.

“A government shutdown gives Donald Trump, Elon Musk and DOGE almost complete power as to what to close down, because they can decide what is an essential service,” Schumer said in a CNN interview. “My job as leader is to lead the party, and if there’s going to be danger in the near future, to protect the party. And I’m proud I did it. I knew I did the right thing, and I knew there’d be some disagreements. That’s how it always is.”

He added that he is not concerned with his leadership position: “I have the overwhelming support of my caucus. And so many of the members thanked me and said, ‘You did what you thought was courageous, and we respect it.’”

But behind closed doors, even some longtime Schumer allies are raising the specter that his time has passed.

“Biden is gone. Pelosi is in the background. Schumer is the last one left from that older generation,” said one New York-based donor who is a longtime supporter of the leader. “I do worry that the older generation thinks 2024 was just about inflation, but no, the game has changed. It’s not left wing or moderate, it’s everyone now saying — the game is different now. But he was set up to battle in 2006, and we’re a long way from 2006.”

Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said “active conversations” are taking place among liberal groups about how to make Schumer pay. He said Schumer will likely face protests over his support for the GOP bill at his tour stops next week for his new book “Antisemitism In America: A Warning.” But he said the effort to hold him “accountable” will not end there.

“He has to be made an example of to enforce Democratic backbone going forward,” he said.

And it’s far from just progressives.

“I have not seen such uniting anger across the party in a long, long time,” said Charlotte Clymer, a Democratic operative associated with the moderate wing of the party who launched a petition to boycott donations to Senate Democrats until they force Schumer out as minority leader. “Sen. Schumer has managed to unite us far more than Trump has in recent months.”

After the GOP bill advanced Friday, Congressional Progressive Caucus chair Greg Casar said in a statement that “we need more leaders from the stand and fight wing of the Democratic Party.” MoveOn warned that the liberal group’s “members will be demanding answers from their elected officials” about the vote. The progressive organization Justice Democrats sent a text to supporters reading “F*ck Chuck Schumer.”

Also on Friday, dozens of protesters organized by the Sunrise Movement descended on Schumer’s office in the Hart Senate building holding signs that read: “Schumer: step up or step aside,” demanding he reverse course on supporting the bill. The group said 11 people were arrested.

“We have to reckon with the fact that young people, working-class people, people of color — the backbone of the Democratic Party — are moving away from the party,” said Stevie O’Hanlon, the organization’s political director. “Chuck Schumer is part of that reason.”

Still, some Democratic senators publicly stood by Schumer on Friday.

Asked if people are urging her to run for Schumer’s job, Sen. Patty Murray (D-Wash.), said, “No, no,” adding, “I’m doing my job today.”

Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), who is retiring after this term, called Schumer “a good leader.” Sen. John Hickenlooper (D-Colo.) told reporters he still has confidence in Schumer in the top role.

Others acknowledged the difficult position Schumer found himself in as he attempted to steer his caucus through a lesser-of-two-evils situation without the same simple-majority cover that Jeffries had in the House.

“It’s tough to be the leader,” said Sen. Jack Reed (D-R.I.).

With reporting by Emily Ngo and Hailey Fuchs.

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Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.

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