Dems Reject Schumer, Join Republicans To Give Trump Another Win
More than a dozen Democrats in the Senate joined Republicans on Monday to confirm one of President Donald Trump’s nominees — a former GOP senator — to a major diplomatic position.
David Perdue, the former senator from Georgia, was confirmed as Trump’s ambassador to China, a critical role given China’s influence on trade and national security. The Senate voted 64-27 to invoke cloture, surpassing the 60-vote threshold.
Perdue previously ran against incumbent Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2022 Republican primary with Trump’s endorsement, but he failed to unseat him.
At the same time, the Democratic Party appears to be losing traction with a crucial part of its voter base: young Americans. A recent poll underscores this growing disconnect.
Brett Cooper, host of The Brett Cooper Show, commented on Fox & Friends that younger voters feel the party has drifted away from their core beliefs.
“Democrats are completely out of touch with their voter base,” she said. “They are aging out. We do not want them in Congress anymore on the left and the right.”
She pointed to the retirement of long-serving legislators like Sen. Dick Durbin as a symptom of the disconnect between younger voters and Washington's aging leadership.
“You see members of Congress like Dick [Durbin] who are so old,” Cooper remarked. “Young people feel unrepresented, and they are fed up.”
According to Cooper, Democrats are stuck between progressive activists and moderate centrists, leaving many young voters alienated.
“If they don’t like Donald Trump, then they’re angry that their representatives are not pushing back enough. If they are more common sense in the center, they’re angry with how radical they’ve gotten. They just feel completely left alone,” she said.
Survey data from the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics supports these views. Their latest poll reveals that only 23% of young Americans approve of congressional Democrats, a significant drop from 42% in early 2017.
Republicans fared slightly better with a 29% approval rating among the same group — a noteworthy increase in a demographic that traditionally leans left.
President Trump’s own approval rating among young people was 31%, roughly matching his support levels during his presidency.
Cooper noted that figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez might still capture the attention of younger voters.
“I think that they are going to have to change course. We will see if that works,” she said. “We’ll see if AOC resonates with as many people as they’re hoping.”
She emphasized the emotional approach Democrats have used in the past to connect with Generation Z.
“It is obviously an emotional issue, and they know that in order to reach Gen Z, I mean, historically, in the past, it has been through emotion, which is why you’re seeing these selfie videos, these rallying cries,” Cooper said.
“The tactics that they have been able to use in the past to reach my generation, through social media, using big, broad, emotionally charged language, that might not work,” she added. “They need to listen to their voters for once and actually see how they’re responding.”
If Democrats are indeed in search of new leadership, polling suggests that Ocasio-Cortez could be a rising contender.
According to a Data for Progress survey, the progressive congresswoman leads Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer by 19 points in a speculative 2028 Democratic primary matchup in New York.
Among 767 likely Democratic primary voters polled between March 26 and 31, 55% supported Ocasio-Cortez compared to 36% for Schumer.
These results were not isolated findings. The same poll showed Schumer with the highest disapproval among Democratic figures surveyed, while Ocasio-Cortez ranked among the most favored — trailing only Bernie Sanders, Kamala Harris, and Elizabeth Warren.