Progressive Dem Candidates Are Using Their Opposition to Schumer to Pitch Voters |
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Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-New York) is being openly criticized by progressive Democratic candidates for office, who are making their opposition to the current leader of the Senate caucus a plank in their platform.
For some candidates, it may aid them in winning their respective primary races.
Iowa candidate for U.S. Senate Zach Wahls, for example, says voters are reacting positively to speeches he gives on the campaign trail in which he disparages the party leader.
“When I’m doing my stump speech and tell people that on the first day of this campaign, I made a promise not to support Chuck Schumer for leader, the room — without any explanation — just spontaneously bursts into applause,” Wahls recently said.
Wahls has the support of Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Massachusetts) and other progressives in the Democratic Party. Meanwhile, state Rep. Josh Turek (D-Iowa), considered a moderate, is supported by Schumer.
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Turek is attempting to push back against Wahls’s criticisms, claiming they are a distraction in the campaign.
“Wahls is out here running against Schumer. I’m out here running against Donald Trump and [GOP candidate for Senate] Ashley Hinson,” Turek said.
Other states are also seeing a schism within their Democratic Party primaries, with Schumer playing a major role.
In the Michigan Senate primary race, for example, Rep. Haley Stevens........