Patriot Brief
Chuck Schumer finished 2025 as Washington’s least popular major political figure.
His approval has collapsed even among Democrats, signaling a loss of internal support.
Party infighting and leadership failures have left Schumer politically isolated.
Chuck Schumer has spent decades perfecting one skill: getting in front of cameras. The problem is that nobody seems to like what they see anymore. According to Gallup, he’s now the least popular major politician in Washington — and not just with Republicans or independents, but with his own party. That’s the political equivalent of being booed by your home crowd.
This isn’t bad luck or media bias. It’s the accumulated cost of failed leadership. Schumer managed to fumble shutdown negotiations twice in the same year, walking away with nothing while projecting weakness both times. In a political moment where Democrats are desperate to look energetic and decisive after the Biden years, Schumer comes off as tired, cautious, and irrelevant.
The numbers are brutal. When only 39 percent of Democrats approve of their Senate leader, the problem isn’t messaging — it’s authority. Other politicians may be unpopular nationally, but they still command loyalty inside their own coalitions. Schumer doesn’t. Even figures the media spent all year attacking are polling well ahead of him. That’s not noise. That’s a verdict.
Worse, the knives are out internally. Younger Democrats are openly questioning his effectiveness, New York voters are souring, and potential challengers are circling. Schumer insists he’s staying, but staying doesn’t equal leading. At some point, clinging to power just highlights how little of it you actually have.
Schumer’s decline isn’t just personal — it’s symbolic. It shows what happens when a party confuses longevity with relevance. Cameras can’t fix that. Polls won’t lie about it. And retirement, at this point, might be the most dignified move left on the board.
From Western Journal:
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer can get in front of as many cameras as he can, but that doesn’t seem to be helping the beleaguered New York Democrat.
According to a new poll from Gallup released Dec. 22, Schumer will end 2025 as Washington, D.C.’s least popular major politician, beating 13 others to the bottom of the rankings.
Schumer’s 28 percent approval rating puts him below his Republican counterpart, Republican Senate Majority Leader John Thune (34 percent approval), Democrat House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (37 percent), President Donald Trump (36 percent), Vice President J.D. Vance (39 percent), Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (39 percent), and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth (36 percent).
And just consider that last count: The media has spent the entirety of 2025 beating up on Hegseth for imaginary scandals blown up to Brobdingnagian proportions — and he still polls eight points ahead of Chuck Schumer.
What’s more, there isn’t a single political group that has a positive opinion of Schumy: Only 16 percent of Republicans and 30 percent of independents disapprove of him, and only 39 percent of Democrats approve of him.
The only other figure who is below water with every political group is Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell — but he still managed a 44 percent approval rating.
The poll, taken between Dec. 1-15, had a margin of error of 4 percent.
“Schumer’s rating among his own party has worsened markedly. Two years ago, 76% of Democrats approved of his job and 20% disapproved, but now 39% approve and 56% disapprove,” Gallup said in a media release.
This isn’t an outlier, either, as the New York Post noted.
“A Siena College poll of New York state voters taken last month also showed Schumer with his lowest approval rating in 21 years of surveys. A majority of voters in deep blue New York had an unfavorable view of the longtime senator,” the outlet reported.
There are a number of takeaways here, among them that politicians across the board are unpopular — but at least they’re mostly popular with their own people. Schumer, 75, has no power base.
After getting flak for avoiding a shutdown in the spring, then leading a shutdown in the fall that got the Democrats virtually nothing in return for keeping the federal government shuttered for over a month, he’s widely seen as impotent and decrepit in a Beltway environment that, after the debacle that was Joe Biden’s final years, emphasizes youth and action.
And aside from the shutdown debacles, there was also the issue of Schumer’s pointed distance from the Democrats’ rising star of 2025, New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani. As NJ.com noted, the lawmaker’s refusal to endorse the Democratic nominee led to some questioning his leadership more loudly.
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Patriot Brief: (Heather Diehl / Getty Images)
