Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Wednesday that he wants Sen. John Fetterman to stay in the Democratic Party, responding after the Pennsylvania senator publicly floated the possibility of walking away from the party.
Schumer (D-NY) praised Fetterman (D-Pa.) as “a very good member of Congress” while brushing aside attacks aimed at him from the party’s progressive wing.
“People in our caucus very much like him and respect him and we’re a big-tent party. We can have a lot of different views in that party,” Schumer told reporters, according to the Hill.
Behind the scenes, however, some Democrats are worried that Fetterman could switch parties and become a Republican — a move that would make their already difficult path to winning a net gain of four Senate seats in November’s midterm elections even more complicated.
Republicans, meanwhile, have signaled that Fetterman would find an open door if he decided to cross the aisle.
“We would welcome him,” Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) told reporters last week.
“I have had conversations with him in the past, as have many of my colleagues, about the challenges he faces in his caucus,” Thune added. “And there are many of us who, I think, would welcome the opportunity to have him join the Republican conference, but ultimately that’s a decision that’s up to him.”
Fetterman has previously indicated that a party switch is unlikely, arguing in a May Washington Post op-ed that he would not fit comfortably in the GOP because he is “strongly pro-choice, pro-weed, pro-LGBT, pro-SNAP, pro-labor and even pro-rib-eye over bioslop.”
Last month, however, Fetterman caveated that if his party “ever becomes — and just makes it official — the anti-Israel party, that’s when I would leave because that’s been a moral clarity for me.”
Schumer has also faced the left’s wrath since Democrats were forced into the minority following the 2024 election. In March of last year, he faced uproar over his decision to cut a deal with Republicans to avert a government shutdown.
The Brooklyn Democrat has also shied away from endorsing populist primary candidates in Senate races, opting for “establishment” picks like Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.).
Fetterman and Schumer are both up for re-election in 2028 and both are likely to face well-funded primary challenges from the left.
