Americans will be smiling at this one. Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed has endorsed Chris Van Hollen to replace Chuck Schumer as Senate majority leader — and if the Democrats really hand their Senate to this man, he will go deep into the Democrats themselves, because Van Hollen carries a photograph that no campaign in America will let them wash off.
El-Sayed announced his backing on X on Thursday night, hours after Van Hollen declared his challenge. “I called on Sen. @ChrisVanHollen to lead our caucus as a candidate back in April because he leads with courage and experience,” he wrote. “We need both right now. Which is why I’m proud to stand with him in his bid to lead our Senate majority.” To “earn our mandate,” he added, Democrats “will require bold leadership.”
The reminder now travelling with the endorsement is the one voters are being shown again: this is the same Chris Van Hollen who flew to El Salvador last year to fight for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the deported illegal immigrant the Trump administration called an MS-13 gang member — and now Democrats want him running the Senate.
The record on Abrego Garcia stands in the court filings: a federal court ruled his deportation unlawful, while the administration’s MS-13 description of him remains its allegation, one his lawyers deny. None of that has dimmed Van Hollen’s rise. Bernie Sanders said on Wednesday that he would support him if he ran, Congressman Ro Khanna has called on every Democratic senator to back him, and Van Hollen told MS NOW that more than 10 senators have already pledged to him. Schumer, who has led the caucus since 2017, remains the favourite and says he holds the support he needs; the caucus decides by secret ballot in December, and the winner leads the Senate when the new Congress opens in January.
For the Americans who voted in November on borders, safety and the cost of living, that is the smile in this story: the Democrats’ answer is to promote the senator whose most famous journey was a flight to El Salvador. The programme behind the bid is real — El-Sayed campaigns on Medicare for All, stronger union powers and the Voting Rights Act, and working families will judge those promises on their merits. But the photograph goes everywhere the programme goes. Van Hollen chose the trip and he chose the handshake; now his party may choose him to carry both into every Senate race in the country.
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First posted on Instagram
Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland announced on Thursday, November 12, 2026, that he will run for Senate majority leader, becoming the first Democrat to challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer for the party's top job in the Senate after Democrats won back the chamber in the November 3 midterm elections.
Van Hollen said voters sent a clear message in the midterms — that they want change from a status quo that is not working for working people — and that meeting the moment requires new leadership. "It's now on us to meet this moment, and to do that we need new leadership," he said. "This is not about any one person — it's about answering the call of the American people. That is why I'm running for Senate Majority Leader."
He announced his candidacy in an interview on MS NOW's "The Briefing with Jen Psaki" on Thursday night, where he said more than 10 of the 55 Democratic senators have pledged to support his bid, while acknowledging he is the underdog against Schumer, who has led the Senate Democratic caucus since 2017 and says he already has the votes to remain leader.
Democratic senators will choose their leader by secret ballot in early December. Democrats will hold at least 55 seats in the next Senate, with the race in Alaska still undecided and the total potentially rising to 56.
Van Hollen's bid drew backing from Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who said he would support him, and from Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan and Sen.-elect Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, who also voiced support for a Van Hollen candidacy this week. Sanders and Sen. Elissa Slotkin of Michigan said they would not support Schumer as leader, and nearly all of the nine newly elected Senate Democrats have said they would not back him either.
The announcement reverses Van Hollen's position of only days earlier. On November 8 he said he was not looking to be the next Democratic leader and was weighing a possible run for president in 2028. By November 10 he was actively calling colleagues about a challenge, and on Thursday he formally entered the race.
Van Hollen, 67, was elected to the Senate in 2016 after more than a decade in the House representing a Maryland suburb outside Washington. He has said he would use the new Democratic majority to hold the Trump administration accountable for what he calls "gross corruption," to push to end the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran — including through the upcoming government funding measure — and to advance an aggressive economic agenda aimed at working people. Schumer, 75, responded to the announcement on X, saying he has the votes to win.
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