July 30, 2025

Hello and welcome back to The Best & The Brightest. I’m Leigh Ann Caldwell.

It’s another busy news day in the political world, with former Vice President Kamala Harris deciding not to run for governor of California. “For now, my leadership—and public service—will not be in elected office,” she said in a statement. Of course, that leaves the door wide open for a future run, including for president in 2028, which Harris has not taken off the table.

Today, I look at how Democrats are feeling about Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer as the upper chamber heads into the thick of appropriations season. As I reported at the time, Schumer lost the plot, and the support of his caucus, during the last funding fight back in March—and while he’s hoping to avoid a sequel to that disaster, his caucus remains divided.

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Before I get into the Schumer situation, my colleague Abby Livingston, a Texas political expert, has everything you need to know about the just-proposed congressional maps for her home state. (We’ll have even more on the second-order effects, including Democratic plans for potential redistricting in New York and California, next week.)

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Here’s Abby…

Abby Livingston

The Lone Star Carve-Up

The new Texas map is out, and while it’s not final, Republicans I’ve spoken to are about as happy as they can be with the redraw. “If you’re going to go for broke here, they did a pretty good job,” a Texas Republican consultant told me. Another said that in the best-case scenario, the G.O.P. can deliver the full five seats that Trump is demanding of the state. Even factoring in a massive Democratic midterm wave, Republicans still predict at least a one-seat pickup. And so far, no Republican incumbent appears to be in danger for the general. Here’s what else you need to know…

Republicans are doubling down on the Latino vote: The Texas G.O.P. is making a big bet that Trump’s progress among Latino voters, particularly in South Texas, is a permanent realignment. House Democratic sources, however, maintain they can still compete for the two seats held by Henry Cuellar (who’s under indictment) and Vicente Gonzalez.
At least two D.F.W. Dems are vulnerable: Democrats Marc Veasey and Julie Johnson are in a heap of political trouble. Republicans eliminated Veasey’s home base in Fort Worth, and while his 33rd district still exists, the delegation elder now faces a primary threat on the Dallas side of the district. It’s not clear yet whether he and Johnson, a freshman whose redrawn 32nd district is now a G.O.P. stronghold, are on a collision course.
Democrats could face more generational battles: We’re on track for another Democratic member-vs.-member race in Austin, between longtime Rep. Lloyd Doggett and sophomore Rep. Greg Casar. If both men choose to run for the new 37th district seat, this race will be on the front lines of the ongoing, generational war within the House Democratic caucus, pitting the 36-year-old Casar (a veteran of the podcast circuit) against the 78-year-old Doggett and his $6.2 million campaign account, accrued over years of redistricting wars. Presumably, he was preparing for a situation exactly like this one.
Houston could get messy: More Republican incumbents are now in west Houston, which one G.O.P. operative described as a net benefit because it spreads the city’s wealthy fundraising base among more Republican members. The historically Black 18th district—drawn originally for Barbara Jordan, and most identified with the late Sheila Jackson Lee—lacked a champion to defend it, with the seat vacant since Rep. Sylvester Turner died from cancer in March, two months into his term. It would be logical for Al Green to shift to the redrawn 18th district, as the new 9th district will be hard for him—or any Democrat—to hold. (The old 18th’s de facto elimination is a blow to Houston’s Democratic representation, but it probably saved the careers of nearby Reps. Green, Sylvia Garcia, and Lizzie Fletcher.) All of these Houston Democrats could face primary challenges. “I’m not sure anything is assumed yet,” a local Dem told me.
Trump may have kicked a hornet’s nest: There will be much more to come here. The maps will still need to pass into law, and Democratic state legislators are threatening to flee the state to delay implementation. Meanwhile, turnout and enthusiasm at redistricting rallies and hearings have left Texas Democrats encouraged about a party that seemed despondent and moribund just a month ago. “Donald Trump has singlehandedly resurrected the Texas Democratic party,” a prominent state Democrat told me last week. A Republican source didn’t disagree, but also asked, “Where are they when there is an actual election?”

Now, for the main event…

Is Schumer a Flip-Phone Guy in an A.I. World?

The Senate Democratic leader is facing down the prospect of another government funding fight before he’s even recovered from the last one. This time, he’s trying to get ahead of it—but some in his caucus have other ideas.

Leigh Ann Caldwell

Perhaps the lowest moment in Chuck Schumer’s eight-year stint as leader of the Senate Democrats came in March, with an Et tu knife twist by speaker emerita Nancy Pelosi. It was government funding season, and Democrats had almost no leverage against Trump while DOGE rampaged through federal agencies. Seizing upon a rare moment of clout, Schumer had raised expectations that he might threaten a government shutdown to wring at least some concessions out of Republicans—after all, the funding bills needed Democratic support to pass. Instead, Schumer dropped the idea and simply announced he’d vote to fund the government, helping pass the Republicans’ continuing resolution, which prompted Pelosi to acidly remark: “I myself don’t give away anything for nothing.”

Now, Schumer is on the verge of yet another government funding fight, ahead of the new fiscal year starting October 1, and he’s determined to avoid a replay of the disaster (which you can revisit here). But he hasn’t fully recovered from the last episode, when he lost the confidence of his members internally, and enraged the base externally. And, once again, he’s facing a grassroots and donor base itching for a fight, and he’s conscious of the optics of Democrats appearing to seek a shutdown. So he’s trying to get ahead of the conflict, and how he handles this moment will have major implications for him and his party as they inch closer to the midterm elections.

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This time around, one Democratic senator told me, Schumer is performing “better.” He’s devoted many of the weekly leadership and caucuswide meetings to government funding strategy, according to senators and aides, and discussed it with House Democratic appropriators as well. Plus, he secured some goodwill with members when he helped convince Roy Cooper, the popular former governor of North Carolina, to run for the Senate seat that opened up with Republican Thom Tillis’s retirement, offering Dems a serious chance to flip it in 2026.

But there’s still some inevitable grumbling from members, who wonder if Schumer is cut out for the Trump era, or capable of confronting a president who many Democrats believe poses an existential threat to democracy. “Trump is testing all of our leaders… including Chuck Schumer, and until we figure out how to go on offense, it [will be] rough going for anyone in leadership,” said one Democratic senator, very carefully, when asked about Schumer’s leadership. “There is no winning by just playing a defensive game.” A former Democratic staffer used Schumer’s most famous tech accessory as a metaphor, saying that the Democratic leader remains a flip-phone guy in a ChatGPT world.

Multiple Democrats told me Schumer is still in listening mode, gathering viewpoints across the caucus and making members feel heard about how to approach funding the government, which remains one of the minority party’s last points of leverage in the Republican power trifecta. He’s yet to announce a specific strategy of his own, but it’s still early days; for now, he’s allowing the appropriations process to move forward, led by Appropriations Committee ranking member Patty Murray and Republican Chair Susan Collins. If the committee moves the Defense and the Labor, Health & Human Services, and Education bills tomorrow, it will have passed eight of the 12 funding packages with bipartisan support. Appropriators, including institutionalist Democrats who are holding on to the last vestiges of bipartisanship, say that is proof that the process is working.

“Fighters, Not Folders”

In any case, Schumer’s listening tour hasn’t prevented intra-caucus tensions from spilling out in public. A small but increasingly vocal faction of the party believes that Democrats should not legitimize a funding process that Trump and his party will likely undermine through rescissions, pocket rescissions, and a White House–written continuing resolution. Senator Elizabeth Warren, a member of Schumer’s leadership team, is so frustrated with her party’s participation that she proclaimed on the floor, this morning, that she was “not willing to be a hookmate on another of Donald Trump’s scams.”

In another act of defiance, Sen. Chris Murphy, the ranking member of the Homeland Security Appropriations subcommittee, has been a consistent vote against any of the bills moving through the committee. He told me he doesn’t “understand how we get a deal if priorities for us just get erased after the door for negotiating is closed.” He was caught by a C-SPAN camera in a testy exchange on the floor with his subcommittee counterpart, Republican Sen. Katie Britt, making the same argument after Republicans voted to rescind $9 billion of funding for foreign aid and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Naturally, Murphy, Warren, and a few other Democrats want the caucus to demand something from Republicans in exchange for their support for funding bills. (Schumer hasn’t discounted making demands, but it’s too early to know what those demands might be. It’s game over if Trump issues pocket rescissions, though, a Schumer spokesperson said.) For Schumer, the pressure will come from the base off the Hill, too, which could become more acute for him as the funding fight heats up in September. After all, the Democratic New York City mayoral nominee Zohran Mamdani is one of his constituents, and could make the party’s approach to government funding an issue in that race, applying more pressure from the left. “We can’t trust Republicans at their word, and we shouldn’t be passing business-as-usual bipartisan bills that do nothing to stop Donald Trump from reneging on the deal later,” Emma Lydon, managing director of P Street, a progressive government affairs group, said in a statement. “Now more than ever, we need fighters, not folders.”

Meanwhile, the caucus still has a significant faction opposed to a government shutdown, which they argue could distract from Democrats’ messaging on higher costs and Trump-fueled chaos and corruption—messaging that Democrats are being told to hammer at home during the August recess. And if a shutdown did occur, they also worry that there would be no way to open the government back up. This was an argument against a shutdown in March, too, but Trump is winding down agencies and ending congressionally funded programs, even without a shutdown. Then there are the caucus members who don’t want to be the first to cause the obstruction; they’d rather let the appropriations process move along and wait for Republicans to make the first bad-faith move. All but six Democrats voted for the military construction (MILCON) funding bill last week.

It’s Schumer’s lot to navigate the dynamics, and while it’s true that some of the noisiest members have grander ambitions, Schumer still is the party leader in the Senate. Ultimately, it will be up to him to eke a win out of a no-win situation, and while his job as leader is safe for now—no one is going to challenge him midcycle—his party, and his career, have a lot riding on the next few months.

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