Israel critic Van Hollen announces ‘underdog’ run for Senate majority leader, challenging Schumer

US Senator Chris Van Hollen says he will run for Senate majority leader, challenging Chuck Schumer, who has led the Democrats in the Senate since 2017, after the Democratic Party won a majority in the chamber in the midterm elections.

Schumer, who is expected to retain his party’s leadership in the chamber but previously predicted not having a challenger, releases his own statement saying he had the votes to continue as the Democratic leader in the Senate.

The closed-door secret-ballot vote will take place next month.

Van Hollen, a Maryland Democrat, says that in the midterm elections, in which Democrats also secured a majority in the House of Representatives, voters called for “a change from the status quo that isn’t working for working people.”

“It’s now on us to meet this moment, and to do that we need new leadership,” Van Hollen says. “That is why I’m running for Senate Majority Leader.”

The 67-year-old tells MSNOW in an interview that he has the support of more than 10 of the 55 Democratic senators who are known to be voting, but acknowledges he was the “underdog” in the race against the 75-year-old Schumer.

Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, an independent who caucuses with Democrats, said they would support Van Hollen, who has been a US senator for nearly a decade and spent 14 years before that in the House of Representatives.

At a press conference earlier this week, Sanders and Democratic US Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan called for new leadership.

Van Hollen, who has hinted at a possible 2028 presidential campaign, has said Democrats need to simultaneously advance multiple goals, including holding President Donald Trump’s administration accountable for “gross corruption,” trying to end the US-Israeli war on Iran and uniting behind an aggressive economic agenda targeted at working-class Americans.

On the foreign policy front, he has been critical of Israel’s policies in the West Bank and Gaza, while advocating against deepening defense ties with the US ally.