Maine Sen. King's non-support for Chapman further jeopardizes Biden's pick to run ATF

President Biden’s nominee to run the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives appears in further jeopardy of losing Senate confirmation to the post now that Maine Sen. Angus King appears to be a "no" vote. 

King is an Independent but votes with Senate Democrats. 

He has declined to publicly state his position on nominee David Chipman but has signaled to the Biden administration and Senate Democrats that he still does not support the nomination, according to Politico. 

Chipman spent 25 years in the ATF and more recently was a gun-control activist working for Giffords and Everytown for Gun Safety, which has raising concerns among Senate Democrats in states in which voters, many of them hunters, value their Second Amendment rights. 

The Democrat-controlled Senate Judiciary Committee has already approved Chipman’s nomination, along party lines.

However, he will also likely need all 50 Democrats in the evenly-split Senate to vote "yes" in the final confirmation vote – with several including Sens. Joe Manchin, of West Virginia, and Jon Tester, of Montana, also saying this week they remained undecided.

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer has yet to schedule a vote to discharge Chapman from the committee so that a final floor vote can held, Politico also reports.