Chuck Schumer, Joe Pinion face off for U.S. Senate

WASHINGTON — Democratic Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, buffeted by critics from the right and left, has launched two campaigns in this year’s midterm election as he seeks to win his fifth term and become the longest-serving U.S. senator from New York.

To win reelection, Schumer points to his ability to bring federal dollars to New York, as he did earlier this month upstate with appearances and TV ads extolling the bill he shepherded through the Senate that led to Micron's plan to invest $100 billion in a computer chip factory near Syracuse.

To hold on to his powerful post as majority leader, Schumer touts the Democratic caucus’ legislative accomplishments in a 50-50 Senate and has distributed $15 million from his own campaign funds to help fellow Senate Democrats running in tight races.

“I am a fighter for the middle class and those trying to get to the middle class and have a very, very productive record of helping them,” Schumer told Newsday.

“And the Democrats have done more to help the middle class with me as majority leader than many of the previous Congresses,” he said.

In his fourth reelection bid, Schumer, 71, of Brooklyn, faces another little known and underfunded Republican opponent who trails in political polls: Joe Pinion, 39, of Yonkers, a former conservative Newsmax host, political strategist and businessman.

Pinion is the first Black candidate of a major party running for the U.S. Senate from New York, according to the state Republican Party. He campaigns on bringing a fresh approach to revive an ailing New York that no longer offers the opportunities it once did.

“If you look at the place that New York is in today, and the country is in today, the choice is clear. If you're unhappy with the world as it is today, you cannot vote for the architects who built it,” Pinion told Newsday.

“That is the case against Chuck Schumer. He built his New York. He built our political system as we know it today. And it is not working for the 19 million that’s shrinking, that call this state home,” Pinion said in a phone interview on his way to campaign in Rochester on Thursday.

Schumer and Pinion will face off in their only debate at 7 p.m. Sunday in Schenectady, which will be aired on Spectrum News.

LaRouche Party candidate Diane Sare, 56, of Sloatsburg, also is running.

Sare, a longtime organizer for former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche’s organization, backs a national banking system and a "Four Powers Agreement" between the United States, Russia, China and India to reorganize the world economy, according to her campaign website.

Pinion's pitch

Over the years, Pinion has moved from athletics to politics. Hailed as a football standout at Horace Mann High School in the Bronx, Salisbury School in Connecticut and at Colgate University, he left college without graduating to start a sports website that he said folded after two years.

He then served as youth development director at Morris Heights Health Center in the Bronx and since has taken on a series of posts in conservative environmental and political strategy groups while appearing on television as a political commentator.

He appeared several times on CNN as a Trump-supporting commentator but now dismisses the former president as a “distraction.”

Pinion did not file a required personal financial disclosure statement with the Senate and has not revealed his sources of income.

He worked on the 2016 presidential campaigns of Republicans Jeb Bush and John Kasich.

In 2018, Pinion ran against Democrat Nader Sayegh for the 90th District State Assembly seat in Yonkers, losing 65%-35%. 

Pinion depicts Schumer in a digital ad as an out-of-touch dinosaur. He called Schumer a lifelong politician who makes a show of visiting New York’s 62 counties every year but then does not deliver for the people. 

Crime, inflation, immigration and education top Pinion's campaign issues.

He calls for Congress to develop best practices for police to reduce crime, cut middle class taxes, rescind new IRS tax auditor positions and hire more border guards.

Pinion also proposes to codify "reading as a constitutional right for every single child” and make “school choice as a right for every single family.”

Pinion said he opposes abortion rights, but downplayed the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. 

“There's not a single woman in the state of New York who is in danger of losing her reproductive rights,” he said, referring to strong state legal protections.

Pinion said he also could take the role in the Senate Republican caucus that Sen. Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) plays in the Senate Democratic caucus as swing vote for moderation.

“I think realistically that is the goal — to be able to go down there and advocate more effectively for the people of New York in a manner that is detached from our politics, but rooted in a shared humanity that actually unites upstate and downstate for the first time in a long time,” Pinion said.

Schumer’s pitch

Schumer’s campaigning aims to keep him at the pinnacle of power in Washington as the first New Yorker and the first Jewish lawmaker to be Senate majority leader, a peak in his nearly five decades as a legislator.

Though he sends campaign funds to other Senate Democratic candidates, Schumer campaigns and makes official visits only in New York.

The left said he's too cozy with big business, and the right said he's moved to the left, and some Democratic Senate candidates distance themselves from him.

Rep. Tim Ryan, the Democratic candidate for Senate in Ohio, in a recent debate promised if elected he would be a “royal pain” to Schumer.

This fall, Schumer has traveled throughout New York touting federal funding and legislation he led the Senate to pass.

Ten days ago, he brought Alejandra Castillo, a federal Commerce Department assistant secretary, to Binghamton University to tour its lithium battery research and development facilities, which recently won an award of $63 million in American Rescue Plan funding.

“We are trying to make New York State the center of chip fab in the world,” Schumer said in a phone interview from Binghamton.

He rejected Pinion’s attack on him as old, unproductive and out of touch with New York.

“It's not about longevity. It’s about productivity,” Schumer said.

“We've had one of the most productive sessions that New York has ever had under my leadership as majority leader, and we've done a huge number of things that people have wanted to do that have not been done,” he said.

Schumer ticked off other legislative accomplishments: 

First gun safety bill passed in 30 years. Treatment for veterans exposed to burn pits. Funding to help businesses, local governments, hospitals, restaurants and theaters survive COVID-19. First major climate bill enacted by Congress.

And for the first time in years, Schumer said, New York has received more money than it sent to Washington — $1.59 for every dollar.

Despite Republican criticism that Democrats' big spending fueled inflation, Schumer said the pandemic relief package Congress approved in the Trump years, the Biden administration's American Rescue Plan to repair American infrastructure, and the Inflation Reduction Act helped save the nation from a depression.

The Inflation Reduction Act, by reducing the federal deficit, medical costs and heating bills, essentially provides an average $1,800 tax cut to Americans, Schumer said.

Money and polls

The matchup for New York’s Senate seat bends heavily toward Schumer, who has won with more than 60% of the vote in his previous reelection campaigns.

Pinion reported in federal campaign finance filings that he has raised a total of $400,875 since January, and had $7,534 in his campaign account on Sept. 30, and nearly $65,000 in debt.

The New York State Republican Party that nominated him, Pinion reported, gave him just $10,000, and the Conservative Party that endorsed him only $500.

Schumer reported in his Oct. 15 filing that he had raised $1.3 million for the third quarter and $36.5 million since January.

Polls also tilt to Schumer.

On Oct. 18, a Siena College Poll of likely New York voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 4.9 percentage points, found Schumer had a 57% to 37% lead over Pinion. 

On the same day, a Quinnipiac College poll of likely New York voters, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.4 percentage points, found that Schumer led Pinion 54% to 42%.