Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said Thursday, Nov. 12, that he will run against Chuck Schumer to lead Senate Democrats when the party takes control of the chamber in January. "To deliver, we need new leadership," Van Hollen wrote in a post on his official X account announcing his bid for Senate majority leader.
The challenge comes nine days after Democrats won the Senate majority by flipping seven Republican-held seats in the midterm elections. Schumer has been the Senate's Democratic floor leader since 2017, according to the Senate's list of party leaders, as minority leader and, from 2021 to 2025, as majority leader. No public response from Schumer had been posted on his Senate pages Thursday evening.
What Van Hollen said
Van Hollen framed the race around the election result. "In this election, Americans called on us to unrig an economy rigged against working people & fueled by political corruption," he wrote. He added that the race "isn't about any one person" and that he is running to answer that call, though the post did not name Schumer or lay out any platform beyond that message.
Van Hollen was first elected to the Senate in 2016 after 14 years in the House, where he was ranking member of the House Budget Committee and served in the Democratic leadership, according to his Senate biography. He sits on the Appropriations and Foreign Relations committees.
How Senate Democrats pick a leader
Under the Senate Democratic Conference rules, the conference alone selects its officers, with no Senate vote needed, and the leader also chairs the conference. A contested leadership race is decided by secret ballot. It must be held in person.
Any Democratic senator can make a nomination. Then the voting continues from ballot to ballot without a break until one candidate wins a majority of the members present and voting. Absent senators can vote by proxy. If there are more than two candidates and nobody reaches a majority, the one with the fewest votes drops off after each round. The conference chair can delay the start of a contested vote by up to two days to give members notice.
The vote cannot happen before December, the earliest the rules allow leadership elections for a new Congress. No date was set as of Thursday night. Whoever wins cannot also chair a standing committee or subcommittee under the same rules.
Edit USA will update this story when Schumer responds or the conference sets an election date.
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