WASHINGTON — Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer's decades-long hold on the Democratic caucus is cracking wide open.
Fresh off historic election victories that flipped the Senate, a growing faction of Democrats are publicly refusing to back Schumer for leader next year, according to Fox News Politics. The revolt includes longtime allies like Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and newer members like Sen. Elissa Slotkin, D-Mich., both of whom declared this week they will not support Schumer's bid to lead the chamber.
The rebellion has a potential standard-bearer: Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., who is "kicking the tires" on a 2028 presidential run and is now openly weighing a challenge to Schumer. Van Hollen spent the week in listening mode, speaking with Senate Democrats about a bid and taking direct shots at the leader for siding with "the crypto industry" and AIPAC against progressive candidates.
"We just saw democracy in America in action. We should bring a little more democracy to the United States Senate," Van Hollen said at the Popular Mandate conference this week, according to Fox News. "We have two newly-elected senators who would not be there if Schumer and the DSCC had their way."
Schumer, for his part, is projecting confidence." The New York Democrat has repeatedly asserted he will be majority leader again next year and spent Wednesday meeting with incoming senators — Rep. Chris Pappas, D-N.H., and Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton, D-Kan. — to discuss their committee assignments and priorities, according to Semafor.
Hamilton told Semafor the meeting was routine: "We talked about being overwhelmed when you're first getting into this and talked about stories, things that matter, committees."
But the optics outside the Capitol tell a different story. Protesters chanted "hey, hey, ho, ho, Chuck Schumer has got to go" outside his personal office this week. Meanwhile, blue, orange and pink sticky notes appeared on a plaque outside Van Hollen's office in a show of support. The progressive group Indivisible launched a "Tell Democrats: NO Schumer Coronation" campaign urging supporters to pressure their senators against backing him.
The math is uncomfortable for Schumer. The Senate Democratic Caucus that will convene next year looks nothing like the one that elevated him to leader in 2017. The class of 2026 — powered by Schumer's own recruitment of candidates like former Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, former Gov. Roy Cooper of North Carolina, and former Rep. Mary Peltola of Alaska — has its own ideas. The Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC and affiliates spent $67 million in Michigan, $65 million in Maine, and $14 million in Kansas, per Semafor, yet the new members are not falling in line.
Van Hollen's potential challenge is hardly a lock. Semafor reports that no one has formally stepped up to challenge either Schumer or House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who faces no declared opponent. A Gothamist analysis noted that both Brooklyn lawmakers remain favorites to lead Democrats in Congress precisely because the opposition has no declared candidate.
X user @MarioNawfal summed up the progressive revolt this way: "Progressives REVOLT against Schumer & Jeffries but no one is stepping up to run against them. Hakeem Jeffries faces no challenger, while Chuck Schumer remains on track to win the Senate leadership vote after Thanksgiving. Sen. Chris Van Hollen is exploring a challenge to..."
The leadership vote is scheduled for Dec. 1, and Schumer is acting like a man who already has the votes. He and Jeffries are already plotting a unified Democratic agenda. But the public defections from Sanders and Slotkin — and the four newly elected senators who have declined to endorse him, per Fox News — suggest the coronation may not be as smooth as Schumer hopes.
Our Take
Here's the delicious irony: Democrats just won a historic election, and their first move is to cannibalize their own leader. The same party that spent years lecturing Americans about "saving democracy" is now watching its progressive base stage a palace coup against a sitting leader who just delivered them the Senate.
Schumer's problem is simple: he built a coalition of moderates and swing-state recruits to win, and now the progressive activist class that knocked doors for those candidates wants to purge him for not being radical enough. Van Hollen's shot about Schumer siding with AIPAC and the crypto industry is a tell — this isn't about winning elections, it's about ideological purity. The left would rather have a leader who says the right things than one who actually flips seats.
And notice who's driving the revolt: Sanders, an independent socialist, and Slotkin, a freshman who hasn't cast a single vote as a senator-elect. Neither of them recruited Sherrod Brown or Roy Cooper or Mary Peltola. Schumer did. The new senators who owe their seats to his fundraising and recruiting operation are the ones being told to knife him before the leadership vote on Dec. 1.
For everyday Americans, this matters less than the price of gas or the border — but it matters for what it reveals. The Democratic Party's activist core is at war with its own electoral machine. If they can't even unite behind a leader who just won, why should anyone trust them to govern?
The question now: will Schumer's allies hold the line, or will the progressive mob get its scalp? Watch the Dec. 1 vote — and watch whether Van Hollen actually has the courage to challenge a "friend" to his face.
