Maryland Democrat steps into race amid lingering frustration with party leadership
By Maya Davis and Lindsay Wise
WASHINGTON—Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D., Md.) said he would challenge current Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) to lead Senate Democrats in the majority next year, setting up a fight over the party’s direction following historic midterm wins.
In an appearance on MS Now, Van Hollen characterized the election result as a call to “reject the status quo, and to reject business as usual. And to do that, I think we need new leadership.”
Democrats picked up at least eight and potentially nine Senate seats, putting them in the majority in the new Congress.
Schumer, 75, responded in a statement, saying, “I welcome any discussion about the future of our caucus and the important work ahead.” He pointed to Senate Democrats’ big midterm wins and said he believes he has the votes to continue serving as leader.
Schumer’s allies credit him with recruiting candidates who won competitive races and for massive fundraising efforts that helped the party expand the electoral map into the Midwest and South this cycle.
But he has faced criticism from party progressives and incoming Democratic senators calling for generational change and for leadership to be more aggressive in confronting the Trump administration. Political fights loom on funding the government, restoring healthcare subsidies and possible impeachments, potentially straining Democrats’ unity.
Democrats will vote on Dec. 1 in a secret ballot. The winner will need a simple majority. Schumer has been the top Democrat in the Senate since 2017.
Van Hollen, 67, won his seat in 2016 after 14 years in the House. He spent the past week calling colleagues and arguing the leadership post shouldn’t be handed over to Schumer by default. The party’s left flank has rallied around Van Hollen for his outspokenness against Trump immigration enforcement efforts and Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Unlike Schumer, Van Hollen backed progressive candidates against moderates in battleground-state Senate primaries, and last year supported Democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani in his mayoral run.
Van Hollen wouldn’t put an exact number on his support in the MS Now interview, but a number of colleagues have signaled support. Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D., Mich.) quickly endorsed Van Hollen’s run late Thursday. Sens. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt.) and Elissa Slotkin (D., Mich.) previously said they wouldn’t support Schumer.
On Tuesday, at his first weekly press conference since the election, Schumer said that he was confident he would be elected majority leader. “Our caucus is really united in focusing on bringing down costs, on ending the corruption, on ending the chaos, on ending the war,” he said.
“When the manager gets to the World Series, you give him another contract,” said Sen. Ruben Gallego (D., Ariz.) at the event Tuesday. Still, Gallego said in an interview the next day that the party “should be having these conversations about how we can improve the caucus and making sure that it’s not just kind of Schumer-centered.”
After Van Hollen’s announcement late Thursday, several Senate Democrats issued statements saying they would vote for Schumer, including Sens. Tammy Baldwin of Wisconsin and Angus King of Maine, an independent who caucuses with Democrats.
Sen. Brian Schatz (D., Hawaii), who is expected to rise to the No. 2 spot in Democratic leadership, had previously made clear that he was backing Schumer, but he issued another statement reiterating that he would vote for him after Van Hollen’s announcement.
“Our caucus has the right to have a conversation about the path ahead, but we have no time to waste,” he said. “We must move quickly to vote, unify, and get to work.”
In a telephone interview the day after the election, Van Hollen told The Wall Street Journal that he was interested in “kicking the tires” on a presidential bid in 2028, rather than the Senate leadership race. “The major debate and discussion over the future of the Democratic Party and of the country will take place as part of that” presidential race, he said.
Asked if he thought Schumer deserved some credit for Democrats’ gains in the Senate, Van Hollen said, “The credit here belongs to the American people, the American voters.”
