The day after Democrats posted the most impressive electoral performance of either political party in a generation, Chuck Schumer launched his own campaign, racing to gather enough support to continue leading Democrats when they regain control of the Senate in January. His reasoning was simple: He should become majority leader because his efforts—by recruiting and fundraising—created the new majority.
In podcast and television appearances, as well as in a Atlantic History declaring him “the architect of a historic landslide”, Schumer was keen to highlight his role in the flipping of several bitterly contested seats, notably in Mississippi, a state that he boasted of having long been his “white whale”. Schumer told the Daily that he personally spotted Scott Colom: “I went up to him and said, ‘You need to run.’
But Schumer’s argument is undermined by the fact that many new senators disagree with the idea that he contributed much to their victories.
Talk to THE Washington Post last week, before his race was called, Colom ran through a long list of Democrats who helped him become the first black senator to represent Mississippi since Reconstruction. Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Raphael Warnock, former Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Bill Clinton were on that list; Schumer, the Job wrote, was “particularly absent”. Colom was even more explicit Friday, telling CBS that it was “not accurate” to say Schumer recruited him. “The people of Mississippi recruited me… Do you think I was listening to someone who lives in Brooklyn? He declined to say whether he would support Schumer as majority leader.
Colom is not alone. Of the 13 new Democrats, only Sherrod Brown, former and future senator from Ohio, has publicly committed to supporting the current Democratic leader of the Senate.
Abdul El-Sayed, the newly elected senator from Michigan, threw his support behind Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, Schumer’s rival, shortly after Van Hollen publicly announced his candidacy to challenge the New York senator on Thursday. Van Hollen, who represented the Washington, D.C. suburbs in the House of Representatives for a decade and a half before joining the Senate in 2017, was praised in 2025 for traveling to El Salvador and demanding to meet with a constituent, Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was mistakenly sent by the Trump administration to the sprawling CECOT prison complex.
“I asked Senator Chris Van Hollen to lead our caucus as a candidate last April because he leads with courage and experience. We need both now,” El-Sayed wrote on X shortly after.
El-Sayed defeated Michigan Rep. Haley Stevens, Schumer’s preferred candidate, in the primary, before Stevens made the most dramatic turn of the 2026 cycle and endorsed Republican Mike Rogers days before the election. (Schumer calls the decision a “despicable betrayal.”)
El-Sayed isn’t the only new senator Schumer is betting against. He supported centrist Rep. Angie Craig against Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan in Minnesota’s Democratic primary. Flanagan, who will fill the seat vacated by Sen. Tina Smith, also announced her support for Van Hollen.
“Minnesotans are demanding change. Democrats must act. That starts with new voices in our leadership,” Flanagan said Friday on X. “I believe Chris Van Hollen is the leader and fighter we need to bring about real change, so no American is left behind.”
Four other new Democrats — Senators Troy Jackson of Maine, Juliana Stratton of Illinois, Adam Hamilton of Kansas and Annie Andrews of South Carolina — have explicitly said they would not support Schumer, while six others declined to say whether they would.
It’s no coincidence that the most vocal opposition to Schumer comes from recently elected senators, said Ezra Levin, executive director of the progressive group Indivisible. rolling stone. “These senators who are coming off an election have had to spend a lot of time with the public, and they understand where the public is (on Schumer),” Levin said.
“I don’t think anyone would deny that people in this country want change,” adds Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party. “People want government to do more, not less. People want immediate relief from the economic crisis they find themselves in. They want accountability, and they also want new leadership. We listen to our citizens, and we accept this change, and we support Chris Van Hollen and his bid to become the next majority leader.”
Mitchell points to the blowout victories of newly elected Reps. Brad Lander of New York and Randy Villegas of California — primaries they won against centrist candidates closer to the Schumer mold — as evidence of the bold vision voters want from Democrats. “They both came out in favor of Medicare for All, they both opposed the war, they were both very clear about the need for us to change our relationship with the State of Israel,” Mitchell says. “Chris Van Hollen is aligned with all of those things.”
Senators Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) and Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) also threw their support behind Van Hollen, as did Our Revolution, the political group that emerged from Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, and the Democratic Socialists of America, which this week launched a “Say No to Schumer” campaign.
The political advocacy group MoveOn also took a stand against Schumer, citing figures indicating that 82 percent of its members want to see him replaced. “Our members are fed up with politicians who settle for incrementalism,” MoveOn executive director Joel Payne said in a statement. (A poll by Indivisible had less good results: only 10 percent of respondents want Schumer to stay as leader.)
Schumer was regularly pilloried throughout the second Trump era for failing to do more to thwart the president’s Scorched Earth agenda, drawing particular anger when he joined Republicans in passing a funding bill in March 2025. Indivisible initially called on the Democratic leader to resign from his post after that vote.
“The debate, then as now, was not about ideology, or personalities, or even communication style,” says Levin. “It was about: Do you know what time it is? Do you know who is in the White House? Do you know what this regime intends to do? Are you prepared to unify the caucus and strengthen the Democratic Party to achieve this?”
Before Van Hollen’s official announcement Thursday of his candidacy for the position, Schumer said he already had the votes needed to be re-elected as leader. Levin, for his part, is skeptical: “After Van Hollen’s announcement, the fact that you didn’t see 29 senators en masse in a press release or in a press conference with Chuck Schumer means he doesn’t have the votes yet.”
Van Hollen echoed some of the new senators in pointing out that Democrats won big in the midterms despite, not because of, the party establishment. “I think if you look at this election, it wasn’t a victory orchestrated by Washington, D.C. It was a huge movement across the country,” he said this week. “That’s why we won in places like South Carolina. That’s why we won in Mississippi. Look, I appreciate the work of everyone at DSCC, but the reality is that until the very last minute, DSCC didn’t spend much in South Carolina or Mississippi.”
A total of 14 senators publicly pledged to support Schumer on Friday, about half the number he would need to be reinstated as leader, a process that takes place by secret ballot. In the meantime, ten senators have officially opposed his candidacy.
Van Hollen acknowledged he’s an underdog in the leadership fight, but as last Tuesday’s results in places like Mississippi showed, that doesn’t mean it’s not a fight worth fighting.
Gn usa
