Chuck Schumer is still traveling, and sticking it to Al D’Amato

Chuck Schumer is one of New York’s 20 most influential politicians of the past 20 years. See the full list.

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been visiting all 62 counties in New York annually for longer than City & State has been around – by almost a full decade. After pledging to visit every last New York county during his first U.S. Senate election against Al D’Amato in 1998, Schumer has made good on the promise for 27 straight years. This year will make 28.

“D’Amato had said to the people in upstate, ‘If Schumer’s elected, you’ll never see him west of the Hudson,’” Schumer recently recalled to City & State. And thus a tradition was born out of Schumer’s desire to prove his Republican opponent wrong. “The first year I did it, I loved it. I learned so much,” he said.

The years of travel have led to some fond – and sometimes funny – memories. Schumer said one of his first trips on the annual statewide tour was to a dairy farm in Genesee County. The Brooklyn native had never been to one before, and he was astounded to learn about modern farming technologies when he asked about the absence of bulls. “Guess who the first person I told was – Hillary Clinton,” Schumer said. “She was already first lady, but she was thinking of running for the Senate. And I told her this, and I said, ‘You got to start doing this. You learn so much.’”

Six years into visiting every county, it was time for Schumer to run for reelection. He won in a landslide, winning 61 out of the 62 counties. Hamilton County, which has the smallest population among New York’s counties, was the lone exception. He recalled a conversation with his longtime aide Martin Brennan about why that happened.

“He said, ‘Well, you said you’d visit every county every year, so you visited six times to (keep) your promise.’ I said, ‘Yes,’” Schumer said. “He said, ‘It’s our smallest county, only has 5.000 people.’ I said, ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Well, it’s obvious. It’s the only county where you actually met every single voter.’”

He may not have won over Hamilton County voters in 2004, but Schumer still makes sure to continue visiting every year. And he learned valuable lessons. “If you don’t visit the Adirondacks (before) September, you may never get there because it’s all snowed in,” he said. Schumer recalled once needing to spend the day driving on a Saturday late in the year in order to make it to his final county in the Adirondacks, lest he break his tour streak.

Schumer takes great pride in how well he’s gotten to know the state over the past nearly 30 years. “I fly a little small propeller plane around the state,” he said. “You can blindfold me and then have me look out the window and know exactly where I am.” And it’s a hard-earned knowledge – Schumer said the door of that propeller plane once flew off in 2005 while he was at 5,000 feet. He said everyone was OK though.

But no travel story is complete without the food. Schumer insisted that the Elmira Corning Regional Airport in the Southern Tier has the best vanilla frozen yogurt. And when he’s in Buffalo, he makes sure to stop by Charlie The Butcher for a beef on weck. “I never miss Charlie The Butcher,” he said.