2025’s biggest political turkeys: Democrats who got burned this year

With the year winding down, 2025 has left many top Democratic figures wishing things had turned out differently — or maybe that the public had put its focus elsewhere. Here are the top political turkeys ripped by conservatives in the past year.

Chuck Schumer

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., has received scorching criticisms from Republicans and Democrats alike in the wake of a 43-day government shutdown that left Democrats empty-handed.

Democrats led by Schumer and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., had refused to advance spending legislation to keep the government open past Oct. 1 without first considering extensions to supplemental funding for Obamacare.

CHUCK SCHUMER BECOMES TOP TARGET FROM MEDIA PERSONALITIES AMID SHUTDOWN FALLOUT

But by the end of a painful and highly visible shutdown — the longest in the country’s history — Republicans had rebuffed efforts to negotiate over the subsidies. Without an off-ramp or negotiating strategy, even the chamber’s most progressive members expressed doubts about continuing the shutdown.

“I just don’t get what the point is of delaying even longer,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., said just moments after a key vote to reopen the government cleared the Senate.

Many Democrats in and out of Congress blamed Schumer for failing to either keep Democrats united in their standoff over the subsidies or for failing to deliver on some other sort of concession. Across both chambers on Capitol Hill, Schumer faces questions about his continued role as the party’s leader in the Senate. 

Kamala Harris

The country’s worst kept secret got a fresh coat of paint in 2025 when a groundbreaking book by CNN’s Jake Tapper and Axios…