Rolling Stone reports:

The day after the Democrats notched the most impressive electoral performance by either political party in a generation, Chuck Schumer kicked off his own campaign, racing to shore up enough support to continue leading Democrats when they reclaim control of the Senate in January. His rationale was simple: He should be made majority leader because his efforts — recruiting and raising funds — created the new majority.

In podcast and television appearances, as well as an Atlantic story declaring him the “architect of a historic landslide,” Schumer made a point to emphasize his role in flipping several hard-fought seats, including in Mississippi, a state he boasted had long been his “white whale.” Schumer told told The Daily he scouted Scott Colom personally: “I went to him and said, ‘You’ve got to run.’’

But Schumer’s argument is undermined by the fact that many of the incoming senators disagree with the characterization that he contributed much to their victories at all.

Speaking to The Washington Post last week before his race was called, Colom ran through a long list of Democrats who helped him become the first Black senator to represent Mississippi since Reconstruction. Sens. Sheldon Whitehouse and Raphael Warnock, former Vice President Kamala Harris, and former President Bill Clinton were on that list; Schumer, the Post wrote, was “notably absent.” Colom was even more explicit on Friday, telling CBS it was “not accurate” to say that Schumer recruited him. “The people of Mississippi recruited me… You think I was listening to someone that lives in Brooklyn?” He declined to say whether he would back Schumer for majority leader.

Colom is not alone. Of 13 incoming Democrats, only Sherrod Brown, the once and future senator of Ohio, has publicly pledged to support the Senate’s current Democratic leader. [Continue reading…]