Chris Van Hollen Faces Pressure to Challenge Schumer
Progressive activists are pressing Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen to run against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, while a separate effort to replace House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has no declared challenger. The campaign highlights the gap between the left’s ambitions and its current leverage.
Maryland Sen. Chris Van Hollen is facing pressure from progressive activists to challenge Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, as Democrats debate whether their leaders should remain in place after major election victories. The campaign has no declared challenger to House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
Van Hollen has not said in the account that he will run. Activists are trying to recruit him before next month’s closed-door vote on Senate leadership.
Corbin Trent, a former spokesman for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, is helping lead a long-shot campaign to oust Schumer and Jeffries. He estimated he spends 15 hours a day on the effort and cited actor Mark Ruffalo and former Ocasio-Cortez chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti among its allies.
Ocasio-Cortez is backing Jeffries, however, and Trent acknowledged the effort faces steep odds. He put the chance of defeating Schumer at 10% and Jeffries at 3%.
“What matters, and matters a lot, is making it loud and clear that voters asked for something else,” Trent said. “That it is being denied to them.”
Informal vote counts and interviews suggest dozens of newly elected Democrats are interested in challengers to the two leaders. But the campaign to replace them, the account said, was built for a disappointing election rather than a landslide.
Progressives argue they helped secure the party’s biggest victories in decades and should have a say in its direction. They say voters who want “change” and support progressive policies will remain engaged only if party leadership changes and President Donald Trump is forced to veto major progressive bills.
At last week’s Crooked Con, Sen. Elissa Slotkin was asked whether she would challenge Schumer. She did not rule it out, but questioned what he would do differently if he sought to lead the party.
“How are you going to do things differently so that Democrats get their sh*t together?” Slotkin said.
Rep.-elect Milat Kiros of Colorado drew a stronger response when he said there had been a “mandate” for change. Kiros defeated Rep. Diana DeGette in a major progressive primary victory.
Van Hollen was repeatedly asked whether he would challenge Schumer. In a brief interview, he disputed the idea that the Senate leader had earned the job.
