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.
Take Rep. Ro Khanna of California, a rising star within the party who posted this after Mamdani’s win and the shutdown L:
Senator Schumer is no longer effective and should be replaced. If you can’t lead the fight to stop healthcare premiums from skyrocketing for Americans, what will you fight for?
— Ro Khanna (@RoKhanna) November 10, 2025
Schumer has made it clear he has no intention of going anywhere without a fight, and the fight, from all appearances, is being taken to him. Not just via social media posts, either.
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been leading in virtually every poll in a primary battle against Schumer, who is up for reelection in 2028. AOC might decline, because a senatorial campaign would end her chances at the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination — a position polls also show her plausibly able to capture, God help us — but there are no shortage of Democrats in New York state who want higher office, some of whom haven’t even killed nursing home patients or sexually harassed staffers.
And that’s assuming he wants to run or maintains his position as party leader. Entering his ninth year as head of the Democratic caucus in the upper chamber, his clout is long past the point of diminishing returns. He can get in front of as many cameras as he wants, but he’s spent a career doing that, and he’s now the least-popular major political figure in Washington by a not-insubstantial margin.
Heck, things are so bad at this point, even the camera might become sentient and turn itself off in disgust. When things are that bad, it might be time for Chuck to just give up and retire.
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