Chris Van Hollen challenges Chuck Schumer for Senate majority leader
Chris Van Hollen, the Democratic senator from Maryland, has formally challenged Chuck Schumer for the post of Senate majority leader, which Democrats expect to reclaim when the new Congress begins in January. Van Hollen said the election showed that Americans wanted a break not only from Donald Trump’s policies but also from a political status quo he argued was failing working people. He presented his candidacy as a demand for new leadership rather than a personal dispute with Schumer.
Schumer, currently the Democratic minority leader, responded that he welcomed discussion about the caucus’s future but already had enough support to continue leading it. He pointed to Democrats’ result of “55 seats and counting” and said he intended to guide the new majority while delivering on the party’s priorities. The contest will be decided in a closed-door, secret-ballot election in early December.
The race sets Van Hollen, viewed as a progressive Democrat, against Schumer, a centrist, and is the first contested election for Democratic leader in decades. The result has exposed divisions within the caucus over the message voters sent in the election. Schumer helped recruit successful candidates and raise money for them, although some winners, including Michigan senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, did not initially receive his support. Schumer has also been consulting senators on an agenda for 2027 and told the Associated Press, “I’m going to win it.”
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