Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on Thursday was caught on a hot mic weighing Democrats’ chances of winning in battleground states that could determine control of the chamber, saying Georgia was “going downhill.”
Schumer apparently was unaware he was being recorded as he greeted President Joe Biden on the airport tarmac in Syracuse, New York, where the president campaigned for Gov. Kathy Hochul (D).
“The state where we’re going downhill is Georgia,” Schumer said, referring to the tightening race between Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock and scandal-plagued Republican Herschel Walker.
In response, Biden noted that former President Barack Obama is due to campaign in Georgia with Warnock and Stacey Abrams, the Democratic candidate for governor, on Friday to help energize Democrats.
Despite the challenges, Schumer told the president “our early turnout in Georgia is huge, huge.”
Warnock maintains a consistent yet narrowing lead in the race, according to polling aggregation site FiveThirtyEight. Earlier this week, a second woman came forward alleging that Walker, who opposes abortion without exceptions, paid for her to have an abortion after she became pregnant during a six-year relationship with him in the 1990s.
Schumer also assessed this week’s Pennsylvania Senate debate between Democrat John Fetterman and Republican Mehmet Oz, saying Fetterman’s stumbling performance in the wake of a stroke didn’t seem to shift the race.
“It looks like the debate didn’t hurt us too much in Pennsylvania, so that’s good,” Schumer said.
Fetterman continues to lead in the polls, but Oz appears to be closing the gap, according to FiveThirtyEight. In a TV interview two days after the debate, Fetterman defended his decision to face his Republican rival.
“I acknowledge that any debate isn’t going to be easy for somebody in recovery, we thought it was important to be there and we showed up,” he told MSNBC.
Schumer added that Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, considered one of the most vulnerable Senate Democrats this cycle, is “picking up steam in Nevada.”
Cortez Masto is running against Republican Adam Laxalt, a former state attorney general who has peddled Trump’s 2020 election lies.
Schumer also referenced another race where Democrats are having trouble, but it was unclear which candidate he was referring to.
“That seat, we’re in danger in that seat. … We’ll see,” Schumer said.
Democrats enter the 2022 final stretch knowing the implications for Biden’s remaining term if Republicans win control of either chamber of Congress. Polls favor the GOP to win the majority in the House, but show a dead heat in the Senate, according to FiveThirtyEight.