As the dust continues to settle on Capitol Hill following Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer’s stunning decision last week to break ranks with his own caucus to greenlight the reckless Republican spending bill, Our Revolution—the nation’s largest independent political organizing group—has released the results of a sweeping survey of more than 9,000 members nationwide that reveals a dramatic collapse in support for Schumer among the grassroots base of the Democratic Party.
The respondents, a subset of Our Revolution’s grassroots network of approximately 8 million supporters in all 50 states, includes rank-in-file Democratic Party activists and base voters, many of whom supported Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren in the 2020 presidential primary.
Key findings from the Our Revolution member survey reveal that:
- The vast majority of respondents (89 percent) believe that Schumer should step aside as Senate Minority Leader
- Should Schumer refuse to step down, 86 percent of those surveyed support efforts to oust him from his leadership role
- 86 percent of respondents also indicated their support for a primary challenge to the Senate’s top Democrat
Beyond cratering support for Schumer from rank-in-file Democratic Party activists and base voters, the survey also found that:
- A strong majority of respondents (83 percent) support primary challengers against all ten Democratic senators who voted for the GOP funding bill
- An overwhelming 96 percent think that Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, head of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, should recruit better candidates willing to stand up to Trump and Elon Musk
- Nearly all those surveyed (99 percent) indicated that they want to see Democrats do more to resist Trump and Musk
“These survey results point to an undeniable crisis of confidence in Chuck Schumer and Democratic leadership at a time of unprecedented executive overreach and corporate takeover of the American federal government,” said Our Revolution Executive Director Joseph Geevarghese. “As Trump and Musk are actively dismantling the federal civil service and vital social safety net programs that millions of Americans rely on for survival, it is an utter disgrace that Schumer and other top Democrats cannot muster up the courage to actively resist. It’s time to step up or step down.”
When given the opportunity to provide open-ended responses at the end of the survey, respondents submitted over 5,000 comments, adding depth to the survey data and illustrating the broader crisis of confidence in Democratic leadership. A selection of these comments includes:
- “Schumer has been an embarrassment for years. We need an opposition party, the Democrats are anything but!”
- “I’m a lifelong Democrat, but I’m so frustrated and discouraged that I’m thinking of becoming an Independent.”
- “I changed my voter registration to ‘None. No Party.’ The Dems need to fight harder/more viciously.”
- “Wildly frustrated and defeated. The GOP has been playing dirty for over 10 years. Why do the Dems keep rolling over and letting them win every time? Now it's reached a point where we may not come back from this. You're failing all of us.”
Joseph Geevarghese, Executive Director of Our Revolution, is available to discuss the survey findings and the growing crisis of confidence in Democratic leadership among grassroots voters. To schedule an interview, contact: media@ourrevolution.com.
This content originally appeared on Common Dreams and was authored by Newswire Editor.