US senator Chris Van Hollen’s challenge to Chuck Schumer ’s leadership of Senate Democrats presents an ideological and biographical contrast to the party as it takes control of Congress in two months.
Though only about eight years younger than Schumer, Van Hollen is seen as a more progressive senator who has drawn attention for his opposition to the Trump administration ’s abusive immigration practices – visiting his constituent Kilmar Ábrego García after an unlawful deportation to El Salvador – as well as opposition to federal corruption and US support for the Israeli government’s war in Gaza.
Van Hollen’s father was a diplomat and his mother was a spy. Born in Karachi and raised abroad before returning to the US for high school in Massachusetts, Van Hollen, 67, earned a philosophy degree from Swarthmore College, then a masters of public policy concentrating in national security studies from Harvard’s John F Kennedy school of government. He worked as a US Senate staffer while studying for a law degree from Georgetown University, which he earned in 1990.
He won a seat in the Maryland house of delegates in the same year, representing Montgomery county, and developed a reputation for fierce advocacy for environmental causes, gun control and public education. Four years later, he won a state senate seat, which he held until challenging a popular moderate Republican congresswoman, Constance A Morella, in 2002. Democrats nationally took a beating that year; Van Hollen’s success was an outlier.
Van Hollen’s policy credentials and longstanding political relationships allowed him to rise quickly into congressional leadership roles usually reserved for more tenured congresspeople. He chaired the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House fundraising arm for electing Democrats, taking over for Rahm Emanuel in 2008. Van Hollen was a key congressional negotiator during the Great Financial Crisis.
When US senator Barbara Mikulski retired after 30 years in office in 2016, Van Hollen emerged as the favored successor by Maryland’s political establishment and had the support of Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid. Van Hollen became the Senate’s chief fundraiser.
Despite this role, Van Hollen has long opposed the Citizens United ruling that opened the floodgates for corporate spending on political campaigns. Van Hollen was one of dozens of lawmakers who filed an amicus brief in the case to defend federal spending limits and has repeatedly called for a constitutional amendment to overturn the decision.
Van Hollen has also been one of senate Democrats’ sharpest critics of the Israeli government and its actions in Gaza. Long a supporter of a two-state solution, Van Hollen visited the Rafah crossing between Egypt and Gaza in January 2024 to observe aid shipments, declaring the assistance process “broken”. Van Hollen subsequently voted for a resolution proposed by US senator Bernie Sanders to apply the human rights provisions of the Foreign Assistance Act to US military aid to Israel. The resolution failed 72-11, with most Democrats also opposing the measure.
Van Hollen authored a report in November 2025 which described the war as a “plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza of Palestinians”, and that “America is complicit.” Van Hollen has worked to end arms shipments to Israel and opposes American security agreements with Israel in the National Defense Authorization Act.
Van Hollen is also a critic of cryptocurrency and decentralized finance in ways that distinguish him from Schumer and Democratic political ties to the New York financial markets.
“As we’ve seen time and again, cryptocurrency and digital assets are rife with opportunity for abuse if left unchecked,” Van Hollen said in a statement opposing the Clarity Act, a financial regulatory package offered by Republicans. Van Hollen has pursued legislation to ban federal officials from owning or promoting cryptocurrency, pointedly highlighting the president’s billion-dollar gains.
Speaking in post-election interviews last week, Van Hollen argued that Democrats “should not be overly cautious in going after corporations, billionaires and special interests that voters blame for making their lives harder”.
