Van Hollen challenges Schumer for Senate leadership after midterm sweep

Chris Van Hollen, the progressive senator from Maryland, said Thursday he will run for Senate Majority Leader in the next Congress — the first open challenge to Chuck Schumer's leadership in decades, and the first leadership fight the Democratic Party has picked after winning an election rather than losing one. The announcement came days after the party swept the midterms, taking the House, the Senate and a good deal of Republican pride, including a historic Senate win in Mississippi.

Schumer, 75, welcomed discussion about the party's future but insisted he has the votes to continue as Democratic Leader. Bernie Sanders said this week he will not support Schumer continuing in the role, and Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, newly elected as the first Muslim senator, backed Van Hollen on X. It will be the first contested election for Democratic leader in decades, and many senators will not say publicly how they will vote.

The rift opened in the spring of 2025, when Schumer sided with Republicans on a spending vote and spent months on the defensive within his own caucus. Since then he has led the party through a government shutdown and orchestrated the midterm sweep — and much of the base wants him gone anyway. Van Hollen, 67, has positioned himself as the new face that generational change requires, an eight-year gap he is presenting as a changing of the guard. He has also said he is considering a run for president, which places the leadership race in the queue of 2028 positioning.

The party's own reading of its victories points the same direction as the revolt. Scott Colom took Mississippi's Senate seat — the state's first black senator since 1875 — not by following the leadership's playbook but by showing up at Trump rallies, asking questions and handing out tacos. Van Hollen's stated reason for running is that the American people called for change, a call his party just answered at the ballot box. The question his candidacy poses is whether the sweep counts as Schumer's to keep, or as evidence that voters wanted something the leadership was not delivering.

Van Hollen's supporters in the caucus have so far kept their votes to themselves.