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It’s Thursday morning.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, the chamber’s top lawmaker for all of 490 days, is temporarily setting aside his natural “punch-Republicans-in-the-nose” instincts. Instead, Schumer is casting his lot with Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) in a bid to notch a gun control deal after back-to-back deadly mass shootings in two of the nation’s largest states.

The legislative and political impacts here are worth dwelling on for a moment.

Schumer, who is quite attuned to political optics, is allowing the Senate to leave D.C. without taking a gun vote even though 19 children and two adults were shot to death Tuesday in a Uvalde, Texas, elementary school. On May 17, in Schumer’s own state, 10 Black people were murdered in a racist shooting at a supermarket. Schumer could’ve put any number of background check bills on the floor this week, forced Republicans to vote against them and scored a short-term political victory against a GOP he describes as beholden to the gun lobby. It seemed to be a tempting political option for Schumer. He came under pressure from his party to do something – and quickly.

Instead, Schumer is allowing Murphy – the Senate’s staunchest gun control advocate – to once again try to cobble together a bipartisan coalition to tighten federal gun laws

Schumer and Murphy understand the task at hand is daunting, the prospects of success are dim. Murphy hasn’t been able to achieve this consensus in more than a year. Murphy has to essentially write off roughly 35 of the 50 Senate Republicans, most of whom would never consider any tightening of gun laws.

Instead, Murphy needs to see if he can find 10 Republicans out of the remainder to support putting in place red flag laws and/or strengthening background checks, while also balancing the political reality that interest in a compromise will wane as time goes on. Momentum is important in an institution like Congress. The Senate is scheduled to leave later today for a 10-day Memorial Day recess.

Which Republicans are in play for Murphy? That’s the question of the moment. Based on our reporting and dozens of conversations we’ve had with lawmakers over the last few days, the following GOP senators have expressed various levels of interest in considering gun legislation: Susan Collins (Maine), Mitt Romney (Utah), Pat Toomey (Pa.), Roy Blunt (Mo.), Rob Portman (Ohio), Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.).

Florida GOP Sens. Marco Rubio and Rick Scott introduced their own version of a red flag law last year, along with Sens. Jack Reed (D-R.I.) and Angus King (I-Maine). Scott signed a red flag law as Florida governor, while Rubio has been offering this legislation since 2018.

Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) noted that his home state has its own red flag law – which he supports – but isn’t sure a congressional deal is possible.

So there is support among Republicans to do something. The challenge here is finding a proposal to attract 10 of them. Murphy may find himself up against Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell and the GOP leadership, which has been reflexively opposed to any gun control package.

Yesterday evening, Murphy, Collins, Graham and Blumenthal met privately on the second floor of the Capitol to talk about a potential legislative package. Blumenthal and Graham have worked together on a red flag proposal for several years, but were never able to round up sufficient backing to get to critical mass.

Should Murphy succeed, it would be a historic achievement for both him and Schumer. The New York Democrat has had some notable successes this Congress: pushing through a $1 trillion infrastructure bill; raising the debt ceiling and passing an omnibus spending deal; confirming the first Black woman as a Supreme Court justice; approving multiple rounds of Covid aid, and funneling tens of billions of dollars to war-torn Ukraine.

Yet the failures have been gutting for the Democratic base. The Senate failed to start debate on an overhaul of voting laws. Two Senate Democrats, Joe Manchin (W.Va.) and Kyrsten Sinema (Ariz.), bucked Schumer and their colleagues and voted with Republicans to preserve the filibuster. President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better Act has been stalled since mid-December, and is more a punchline than a signature legislative achievement.

Equally interesting is the shift in political dynamics that a potential failure in this effort would portend.

Democrats are getting ready to wage the 2022 elections on grounds familiar to Republicans: guns and abortion. It is, in some ways, Democrats’ version of the culture wars.

→	Here’s Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.):

→	Sen. Brian Schatz (D-Hawaii):

→	Sen. Gary Peters (D-Mich.), the chair of the DSCC:

Interestingly enough, Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto (D-Nev.), one of the most politically endangered Democrats in 2022, told us she will be running on “kitchen-table issues.”

Of course, Nevada has red flag laws, background checks and has codified Roe v. Wade into state law.

Rick Scott, the chair of the NRSC, doesn’t think much of the culture war strategy. “I think the election is going to be about inflation, the economy, jobs, it’s going to be about school choice. It’s gonna be about crime. … It’s going to help us win elections,” Scott said.

– Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan

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