Chuck Schumer Needs 28 of 55 Democratic Votes to Become Majority Leader, and Ten Have Not Committed

Chuck Schumer needs the votes of 28 senators in a Democratic caucus of at least 55 to be elected Senate majority leader for the Congress that begins on 3 January, and ten Democratic senators and senators-elect have so far declined to say he will have theirs, by this publication’s count of their public statements.

The vote is a closed-door caucus election, held by secret ballot, and Mr Schumer needs a majority of the caucus rather than of the Senate, Newsweek reported. Democratic senators and senators-elect are due to meet in early December. The size of that electorate changed on Wednesday, when Scott Colom’s victory in Mississippi gave Democrats at least 55 seats; Alaska, the one Senate race still uncalled, would make it 56 if Mary Peltola wins. A majority of 55 is 28. A majority of 56 is 29.

“I’m confident I will be elected majority leader,” Mr Schumer said on Tuesday. He has said he already has enough support, and no colleague has formally entered the race against him, Newsweek reported separately.

Who has said what

The table is this publication’s count of Democratic senators and senators-elect whose positions have been reported by name since the election, compiled from the two Newsweek reports linked above. It records only what each has said publicly. Senators-elect with no quoted words are listed as the reports describe them.

The arithmetic is not close on these numbers, and the table explains why the contest still matters. Ten names are against or holding out. Mr Schumer has four named supporters and his own vote. That leaves 40 members of a 55-seat caucus who have said nothing on the record in the reports read, and the outcome lies with them. For Mr Schumer to fall short, 28 members would have to withhold their votes from him, which means at least 18 more beyond the ten, all of them from the silent 40. If Alaska makes the caucus 56, opponents still need 28, because the majority he needs rises to 29. Those are this publication’s calculations from the reported statements; a secret ballot does not bind anyone to what they have said in public.

Why the holdouts matter more than the opponents

Because half of the ten are new to the Senate, and four of the five sitting senators among them have chosen words that leave room to vote either way. Mr Van Hollen, of Maryland, said at a post-election gathering that “nobody should get a blank check without a full understanding of the caucus as to where we’re going to go,” and earlier said he was “not looking to be the next Democratic leader,” Newsweek reported; a person familiar with his thinking told the magazine that “the door is not shut.” Ms Slotkin, of Michigan, suggested that Democrats could withhold a quorum if Mr Schumer runs unopposed. Neither has said they would vote against him.

The senators-elect are a different case. Mr Hamilton won in Kansas, a race this publication followed when Cook moved it to toss-up as a Democratic majority came into reach, and he said on CNN that Mr Schumer is “seen as a more divisive figure by many people.” None of the five senators-elect has voted in a Senate leadership election before. On the other side, Mr Whitehouse said the midterm results “certainly justifies another term” for Mr Schumer.

How often does the caucus change its leader?

Rarely. The Senate’s list of majority and minority leaders shows seven Democratic floor leaders since 1953. The table gives their tenures as the Senate lists them, by Congress; the years are this publication’s arithmetic.

Seven leaders in 74 years is an average tenure of more than ten. Mr Schumer has led the caucus as minority leader from 2017 to 2021, majority leader from 2021 to 2025 and minority leader again since 2025, and a new term would make him the fourth Democrat since 1953 to lead for more than a decade, after Mansfield, Byrd and Reid. The Senate’s list records tenures, not how each one ended, so it cannot say how many of the six earlier changes came by a contested vote.

The House Republicans showed this week what a secret ballot does to public commitments when Jim Jordan beat Steve Scalise 106 to 73. The Senate Democrats’ ballot comes in December, before the new Senate convenes under the Twentieth Amendment on 3 January. The number to watch until then is not ten. It is how many of the 40 say anything at all.