General Discussion

Democratic Senators don't like a strong Senate Leader. It has been this way for a long time. Daschle and Schumer are both weak leaders, and Reid stayed out of other Senator's activities. If people want a party with strong centralized leadership, they should vote Trumpublican.

Democrats also do not want a Senate leader that is a lightening rod right now. Democrats are defending some tough seats, but also have getable seats in NC and ME in 2026. That means they only need to find 2 more. Rust belt and farm belt will be in some serious economic pain, and there are a lot of Republican Senators that rubber-stamped bad Trump policies that will cause a lot of pain in the Midwest.

I see the most likely targets as:

1) KS - this state is not nearly as dark red as it was before, and Marshall is a weak candidate.
2) TX - the Texas Latino vote has been trending against Democrats for 3 straight Presidential elections, but that could stop with the chaos that Trump has unleashed.
3) AK - Getting hammered by government spending cuts and tariffs. Sullivan only got 54% in 2020.
4) IA - Ernst did not win big in 2020, and Iowa is going to get smashed economically by tariffs because of its dependence on agriculture and manufacturing.
5) OH - Will get hit hard by tariffs, and by the crackdown on immigration. Ohio depends on immigrant labor for his manufacturing industry. Furthermore, Ohio has a lot of colleges that were increasingly dependent on international students as the demographic cliff hits higher education. Ohio could see a crisis with some of its universities if foreign students drop as much as anticipated.

Democrats will lose all of those states if they have a firebrand Senate Leader. Let Cory Booker, Chris Murphy and Bernie Sanders do their thing, while Schumer remains as a less interesting target for Republicans.