Chris Van Hollen Will Challenge Chuck Schumer for Senate Democratic Leader in a December Caucus Vote

Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland said on Thursday 12 November that he will run against Chuck Schumer for leader of the Senate Democrats, forcing the caucus into its first contested leadership election since 1994. “That’s why I’m running for Senate Majority Leader,” he wrote on X, CBS News reported.

The decision belongs to the Democratic caucus alone, not the Senate. Democrats and the independents who sit with them, at least 55 when the new Congress meets, will choose by secret ballot at a closed-door meeting in early December, according to the Associated Press. A simple majority of the caucus wins: 28 votes of 55, or 29 if Alaska’s uncalled race makes the caucus 56. On the public record, Mr Schumer is 13 short of that and Mr Van Hollen 25 short, by this publication’s count.

Mr Schumer answered within hours. “I welcome any discussion about the future of our caucus and the important work ahead,” he wrote, adding that “55 seats and counting is an amazing result” and “I have the votes to continue serving as Democratic Leader,” ABC News reported. He has led Senate Democrats since 2017.

What a declared candidate changes

A declared candidate changed the question senators are being asked. In a count published on Thursday, this publication counted ten Democratic senators and senators-elect who had declined to back Mr Schumer and four who had said they would. Those holdouts were withholding support from the only candidate. Now they have to pick between two. “It is one thing to have someone’s support when you’re the only choice,” Mr Van Hollen said, Time reported. He told MSNOW that “you can’t earn that trust with old leadership,” according to ABC.

The first public effect has run the other way. By Friday, Time had listed fourteen senators and senators-elect backing Mr Schumer by name, ten more than this publication had counted on Thursday. Among them is Angus King of Maine, an independent, who asked: “Why would you fire the manager when you just won the World Series?” Catherine Cortez Masto of Nevada said she “will be supporting him as our Democratic leader,” the AP reported, and Jacky Rosen, Nevada’s other senator, endorsed him late on Thursday, according to CBS. Two names went to Mr Van Hollen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who had already said he would not support Mr Schumer, endorsed him, writing that “The American people voted for change,” and Abdul El-Sayed, the senator-elect from Michigan, did the same.

Who has named a choice?

Fifteen members have named Mr Schumer, counting his own vote, and three have named Mr Van Hollen, counting his. The table is this publication’s compilation from the reports linked in this article. It records only what each member has said in public, and a public position does not bind a secret ballot. The fourth column shows which outlets reported each name; names carried by only one outlet are marked as such.

The arithmetic follows from the table. Fifteen named for Mr Schumer, three for Mr Van Hollen and seven on record against Mr Schumer or withholding, without endorsing anyone, make 25 of 55. That leaves 30 members who have said nothing reported by name, and 37 in all who have not chosen in public. Mr Schumer needs 13 of those 37 to reach 28. Mr Van Hollen needs 25 of them, about two in every three. Ms Slotkin, who said “I’m a no until and unless I see that from anyone,” according to CBS, sits in the 37 for the purposes of that count, because a vote against one candidate in a two-way race is not yet a vote for the other.

How was the last contested race decided?

By one vote. The Senate’s list of majority and minority leaders shows Tom Daschle of South Dakota succeeding George Mitchell of Maine as Democratic leader in the 104th Congress, which began in 1995, and both Time and the AP describe this year’s race as the first contest for the post since then. “In 1994, Senator Daschle became Senate Democratic leader by a single vote,” Robert Byrd said in a tribute printed in Senate Document 108-22. His opponent was Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, Time reported.

The Senate list shows how rarely the job has changed hands since: four times in the 48 years from Robert Byrd’s first Congress as leader, in 1977, to Mr Schumer’s current one, by this publication’s count of the list’s rows. A December win would give Mr Schumer the leadership into a sixth Congress. The post of leader is a party office, which is why the Senate’s list records it by party and Congress and why the vote happens in a caucus room rather than on the floor. The chamber itself does not vote on who leads the majority.

Why the size of the electorate matters

Because at least eight of the voters are new. Democrats “flipped at least eight Senate seats,” CBS reported, with Alaska still uncalled, and the caucus will have at least 55 members, Time reported. This publication has followed several of those races, including Scott Colom’s win in Mississippi and the ranked-choice count still under way in Alaska. Senators-elect vote in the caucus election even though they will not take office until January, under the Twentieth Amendment. Four of the seven names on record against Mr Schumer or holding out are senators-elect, as is one of the three names for Mr Van Hollen.

Mr Van Hollen has pitched the newcomers on a theme of change and on a complaint about primaries. “We have two senators right now in the United States Senate who wouldn’t be there if the current majority leader had his way,” he said, according to CBS. Mr Schumer has spent the week meeting senators one by one on a 2027 agenda that includes a first-100-days plan, the AP reported. Outside groups are pressing the other way: MoveOn, Indivisible and the Working Families Party have said they will back primary challenges in 2028 against Democratic senators who do not support Mr Van Hollen, according to Time.

The House Republicans showed this month what a secret ballot can do to a public count when Jim Jordan beat Steve Scalise 106 to 73. The number to watch before the Democrats meet is 37, and how many of those members say anything before the door closes.