WASHINGTON — Democrats won the Senate on November 3, and Chuck Schumer says the leadership question is settled: he will be re-elected majority leader. A growing number of his own senators, including several who have not yet been sworn in, are declining to say the same.
Schumer, the New York Democrat who has led his party in the Senate since 2017 and served as majority leader from 2021, told reporters after the election that "the issue is not me" and that he would be re-elected. Reporters covering the caucus describe him as the heavy favorite, and he needs only a majority of Senate Democrats in a closed-door, secret-ballot vote expected next month, in December.
The hesitation is coming from two directions. Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland has withheld his support, saying the caucus needs an open and honest discussion about leadership first and that any leader should commit to a bold agenda before earning his vote. Van Hollen is also reported to be weighing a run for president in 2028, and has said running for leader is not his focus.
Senator Elissa Slotkin of Michigan went further in public. Asked at a post-election Democratic conference on November 7 whether she might challenge Schumer herself, she said, "I’m not ruling anything out," and added that she has been vocal that the party needs a new generation of leadership. No incumbent senator has formally declared a challenge.
At least five newly elected Democrats have publicly declined to commit to Schumer, among them Juliana Stratton of Illinois, Adam Hamilton of Kansas, Troy Jackson of Maine, Abdul El-Sayed of Michigan, Peggy Flanagan of Minnesota, Chris Pappas of New Hampshire and James Talarico of Texas, according to reporting by Fox News and other outlets. Jackson has said he told Schumer directly that he would support somebody else.
The background is Schumer’s standing with voters. A Siena College survey in May put his favorable rating among New York voters at 33 percent, with 52 percent viewing him unfavorably, and an NBC News poll in late October found 13 percent of voters nationally viewing him positively against 53 percent negatively. Those are the numbers his critics cite. His supporters answer with the result itself: Democrats took the Senate with at least 54 seats, won races in states President Trump had carried, and Schumer and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, who chaired the party’s Senate campaign arm, are credited inside the party with helping to build that map.
Why it matters: the winner of this vote will run the Senate floor for the next two years, setting what gets voted on, which of President Trump’s nominees and bills move, and how the new majority uses its investigative powers. If Democrats also seat Hakeem Jeffries as speaker of the House, as expected, both chambers of Congress would be led by New Yorkers while a third New Yorker sits in the White House.
What happens next: the caucus votes by secret ballot in December. Schumer’s path remains the simpler one, because most sitting senators are expected to stay with him and he needs only half the caucus plus one. The open question is whether a challenger with a name and a plan steps forward, or whether the dissent stays what it is now, a warning about the agenda rather than a contest for the job. Sources: Senate Democratic Caucus transcript, November 4; reporting by the New York Post, Fox News and NPR.
