Schumer faces leadership challenge from Van Hollen

WASHINGTON — New York Sen. Chuck Schumer says he’s sewn up the votes to become Senate majority leader, but his just-declared challenger says he’ll put that to the test and is abandoning a potential presidential bid to do so.

"I think a little democracy in the United States Senate [Democratic] caucus is a good thing," Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen said Friday, saying he no longer will consider running in 2028 for the White House, even if he fails to become Senate majority leader.

Van Hollen first stepped forward Thursday night as a self-described "underdog" alternative leader to Schumer, 75, at a time when Democrats otherwise could be enjoying an exuberant postelection ride after winning control of the Senate and the House.

What lies ahead could be two  weeks of internecine Democratic warfare, backroom deals and drama. But Van Hollen, 67, at a news conference in Denver, explained that beyond a repudiation of President Donald Trump and his policies, voters last week "chose change."

A signal for change, asserted the second-term incumbent, was indicated in part by the election of several new senators who themselves campaigned on bringing change to the Senate, including by promising not to back Schumer as leader.

The secret-ballot election for Senate majority leader is expected Dec. 1, and with the Democrats set to hold either 55 or 56 seats (Alaska remains undecided), 28 or 29 caucus votes are needed.

For fifth-term Sen. Schumer, this challenge comes against his 10-year leadership of the Democratic caucus, including previously being majority leader from 2021 to 2025. His own Senate seat comes up for reelection in 2028, but he has not yet said whether he intends to seek a sixth term.

While Van Hollen, often seen driving himself to the Capitol from his home in a nearby Maryland suburb, doesn't bring generational change, he is regarded as more progressive. He supports Medicare for All, raising the federal minimum wage and more forcefully using the power of the Senate to end the Iran war, and he has been critical of the U.S. relationship with Israel. Before being elected to the Senate, he served seven terms in the U.S. House, and he has experience as head of the party’s campaign committees in both chambers.

Van Hollen gained national attention and greater status with the left in April 2025, when he traveled to El Salvador to meet with a Salvadoran immigrant who was wrongfully deported and sent to prison there. Without saying so directly, he implied on Friday that Senate Democrats under Schumer have not been standing up to Trump forcefully enough.

"What if we went toe-to-toe with the president to take on the fights that are too important to lose ... by making the case to the American people to end the war, to protect healthcare, to stop our neighbors from being sent to foreign gulags, to defend our Constitution," he said.

There were no immediate responses from Schumer's office to requests for comment. On Thursday night, he released a statement that said he welcomed any discussion about the future of the caucus, and that he was proud of the number of seats Democrats had won in what he called "an amazing result — and I have the votes to continue serving as Democratic Leader."

Early vote-tracking by news outlets and others suggests it is, in fact, an uphill climb for Van Hollen, but there are two weeks to make that climb.

Schumer as leader did help engineer the Senate’s Democratic takeover — with the help of Trump’s unpopularity — boosted by wins in deep red states like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas and elsewhere, Shawn Donahue, a political scientist at the University at Buffalo, said. And the change in outlook that Van Hollen likely would bring regarding Israel — while making him popular with some members — could hurt him with some senior incumbent members.

But Van Hollen already has chalked up commitments from progressive Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed, of Michigan, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont independent who caucuses with Democrats.

And there are other newly elected senators raising other issues, including congressional leadership being too tilted to New York. Another Brooklyn native, Hakeem Jeffries, is in line to become speaker of the House.

"We’re talking about the same city, the same borough in the same city," Mississippi Senator-elect Scott Colom said this week. "I want somebody that understands rural America, that's committed to showing through their actions their commitment to rural America by putting people like myself on the committees."

Longtime New York Democratic political consultant Hank Sheinkopf summed up Schumer’s challenge: "Tough race caused by age and party personality changes."