As late as last year, there was some chatter that Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who has emerged as the face of the Democratic Party’s left-wing, would challenge Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer in New York’s Democratic Senate primary. But common sense, and Schumer’s political instincts, won out, leading to Schumer running for renomination essentially unopposed. 

His Republican opponent is Joe Pinion, a former Newsmax host and… climate change activist? Pinion has been outspoken in his belief that Republican denial of climate change will lead to the party’s “political extinction” and is affiliated with the republicEns, a conservative environmentalist group that supports a carbon tax. Pinion hopes that by removing climate change as a “wedge” issue, it’ll help attract younger voters; the New York GOP hopes that by nominating a more diverse slate of candidates (Pinion is the party’s first Black New York Senate nominee) they can build on the gains they made among non-white voters in 2020. Time will tell if the former strategy can be effective (House Republicans did release a vague climate change strategy in June that calls for emissions reduction), but as far as the latter strategy goes, if it didn’t work for John James in Michigan in 2018 and 2020, it’s unlikely to work in the much bluer New York, where Schumer stands to become the longest tenured senator in state history.

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