Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned that “Republicans and the media are going to try to divide Senate Democrats against each other." | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Schumer needs Dems united on SCOTUS. That won’t be easy. The Senate minority leader faces huge pressure from the left to keep red-state Democrats from supporting Trump’s Supreme Court pick.

The last time Senate Democrats stuck together to win an all-consuming fight, the issue was Obamacare repeal — and they started off remarkably united against it.

Now Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is aiming to replicate that performance in the imminent battle over Donald Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, but his troops face a high risk of division right out of the gate.


Under particular pressure to side with the president are the three red-state Democrats who voted for Justice Neil Gorsuch last year and face difficult reelection campaigns: Sens. Joe Manchin, Heidi Heitkamp, and Joe Donnelly.

Keeping them in the Democratic fold — in the face of withering pressure from a liberal base that expects nothing less — amounts to the biggest challenge of Schumer’s 18-month tenure as Democratic leader. The New Yorker has preferred to take a hands-off approach to his moderate members, rather than twisting arms on big votes. Yet it’s far from clear that will work this time.

“The message from grassroots groups is pretty clear: that if Democratic leadership can keep their caucus unified in doing no harm, we can aim our firepower on Republicans like Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski and bring full pressure to bear in their states,” Adam Green, co-founder of the activist Progressive Change Campaign Committee, said in an interview.

Green added that any red-state Democrats who “start leaving the reservation and actively march in another direction” on Trump’s Supreme Court nominee, “that by necessity will take energy away from pressuring Republicans.”

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After taking some heat from the left during this year’s bruising immigration and CIA confirmation battles, Schumer is emphasizing unity to his party’s agitated activists ahead of Trump’s Monday nomination announcement.

“This is not a fait accompli,” he told Brooklyn constituents on a call Monday after having to cancel an in-person town hall in the liberal enclave. Schumer added a warning that “Republicans and the media are going to try to divide Senate Democrats against each other, especially those of our colleagues running for reelection in the red states.”

Democrats on and off the Hill say they’ve found the right recipe for sticking together and putting the GOP on the defensive: turning the Supreme Court vote into a referendum on both Roe v. Wade and Obamacare. Leaders of five advocacy groups on the left gathered on Thursday to urge that the nominee acknowledge “personal liberty” as a constitutional protection covering abortion, contraception, and marriage, rather than simply describing Roe and other cases as settled precedent.

Schumer sent those messages to Trump himself during a Tuesday call about the Supreme Court, first reported by The Washington Post. The New York Democrat warned the president that a high court nominee who would roll back Roe or Obamacare would be “cataclysmic,” according to a person familiar with the call, and even suggested tapping Obama-era nominee Merrick Garland “as a way to unify the country.”

Schumer’s also working to make sure that he and party activists stay on the same page, meeting with liberal organizers last week about the Supreme Court. A Democratic leadership aide said that staff-level planning calls are happening multiple times a week.

Still, that hasn’t shielded Schumer from criticism from some corners of his base. Local members of the anti-Trump group Indivisible have been particularly vocal in his home state, prodding him to actively “whip the vote” in his caucus after he said he couldn’t make it to the sold-out town hall because of flight trouble.

Behind liberals' anxiety about a Trump justice sailing to confirmation this fall and reshaping the high court for decades is a worry that Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly — and potentially other red-state Democrats — will see little reason to fight the president’s nominee while also waging tough re-election battles.

Manchin and Donnelly both supported Amy Coney Barrett, one of Trump’s top contenders for the Supreme Court, for a circuit court post last year, in addition to their votes for Gorsuch. But Democrats and their activists insist that this nomination will have higher stakes for red-state Democrats.

"People remember the Gorsuch fight. My sense is that this will be different," Ben Wikler, Washington director of MoveOn.org, said in an interview.

About a year ago, during the Obamacare repeal push, “there was also a long period where activists were wondering ‘Where are the Democrats?’ and then they really showed up,” Wikler recalled. “We’re likely to see a process like that on an accelerated time frame this time."

That the confirmation vote on Trump's Supreme Court pick is likely to play out as voters begin closely tuning into the midterm election battle promises to boost Democratic engagement in hotly contested races, including those of the three red-state incumbents who backed Gorsuch.

Veteran Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, a consultant to progressive groups including the pro-Obamacare Protect Our Care, said that among the political factors that have "fundamentally changed since Gorsuch" is the Trump administration's decision to support a Texas legal challenge to the health law — a suit also backed by GOP state attorneys general who are challenging Manchin and Sen. Claire McCaskill (D-Mo.) this fall.

Trump "now wants to appoint the judge who may well rule on that case," Ferguson noted, as well as a Supreme Court justice who "could tip the balance" on abortion rights that retiring Justice Anthony Kennedy co-authored a key opinion to uphold.

McCaskill said in an interview this week that she's "not optimistic" Trump will select someone she can support. But she's making no firm decisions and bracing for plenty of heat from the left and right.

“It’s my job. I mean, I’m from a state [where] no matter how I vote, about half the people are mad at me," she said. "So I’m used to lots of pressure, high profile stuff."

Manchin, Heitkamp and Donnelly have offered few specifics about their criteria for the Supreme Court vote, even as all three met with Trump last week on the matter. That may change once Trump selects a nominee on Monday.

In the meantime, the party's activists have little choice but to enter their latest against-the-odds fight believing that Schumer's caucus can link arms against the president and then win over a couple moderate Republicans.

"Step One is keeping Democrats together. Whatever the talking point, it doesn’t matter,” Angel Padilla, Indivisible’s policy director, said in an interview. “Keep Democrats together.”

Burgess Everett contributed to this report.