Schumer faces revolt from fellow Democrats over Senate leadership
Photo: U.S. Senate DemocratsDays after Democrats won back the Senate in the midterm elections, Chuck Schumer's bid to return as majority leader is meeting open resistance from his own party, with Sen. Elissa Slotkin refusing to rule out a challenge and Sen. Chris Van Hollen urging colleagues to withhold their support until Schumer lays out a plan for the new majority.
Schumer remains the heavy favorite. He has no declared opponent, and he needs only a majority of Senate Democrats in a secret-ballot leadership vote expected in December. Democrats are poised to hold at least 54 seats when the new Congress convenes on January 3, with races in Alaska and Mississippi still uncalled. But the public dissent at a post-election gathering in Washington on Saturday showed that even a sweeping midterm victory could not paper over long-simmering disagreements inside the party about who should lead it.
At the gathering, known as Crooked Con, Slotkin of Michigan said Schumer must produce a plan for the first 100 days of the new Congress before she would consider voting for him. "If he wants to be majority leader, what is your plan for the first 100 days?" she said. "How are you going to do things differently?" Asked whether she would run for the top job herself, she answered: "I'm not ruling anything out." The crowd booed and jeered at the mention of Schumer's name throughout the day, CNN reported.
Van Hollen of Maryland struck a similar note. "There should be no coronation of the next Democratic leader," he said, adding that nobody should get "a blank check" without a full discussion in the caucus about what Democrats plan to do with their new power. He said he has urged colleagues to "withhold commitments" until Schumer outlines his vision, and Slotkin said Democrats should not hand Schumer a quorum — the minimum attendance needed to conduct Senate business — until he answers their concerns.
Van Hollen, for his part, said running for leader himself was "not my focus" and that he is instead weighing a 2028 presidential campaign. He told CNN on Saturday that he has not heard "directly" from Schumer since the midterms but expected to speak to him in the coming week.
The resistance extends beyond the two sitting senators. At least five newly elected Democrats have said publicly they will oppose Schumer in the leadership vote, and several more have declined to commit. Kansas Sen.-elect Adam Hamilton told CNN on Sunday that Schumer is "seen as a more divisive figure by many people, and I think we need somebody who's going to bring us together." Incoming senators Troy Jackson of Maine, Annie Andrews and Peggy Flanagan have also reaffirmed the need for new leadership, while Michigan Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed told ABC's "This Week" that he wants to see who else enters the race. Scott Colom, the Democrat in the Mississippi race that remains too close to call, has been noncommittal, calling for more geographic diversity among party leaders.
Schumer has led Senate Democrats since 2017 and served as majority leader from 2021 to 2025. He told reporters the day after the election, "I'll be reelected as majority leader," and in an interview with The New York Times published Friday he said he did not expect to face any opposition. "Our caucus is focused on moving forward," he told the newspaper's "The Daily" podcast. "Everyone's very happy with what we all did."
Several Senate Democrats have already said Schumer earned the right to return as leader after the better-than-expected results in Senate races. Sen. Mark Kelly of Arizona told reporters after his appearance at the same gathering on Saturday that he plans to support Schumer, while adding that Democrats need "to do things differently than we've done before." Senators Sheldon Whitehouse and Cory Booker have also spoken up for Schumer, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand has been credited by supporters with helping build the map that delivered the majority.
Slotkin, who has long called for "a new generation of leadership," pointed to her own record for the incoming freshmen: she campaigned in her first House run in 2018 promising not to support Nancy Pelosi for speaker — and followed through by voting present in the speaker's election in January 2019. "These people who just won in tough places, I think, will have a hard time, both as leaders but also just as politicians, going back on their word as their first thing that they do," she said.
The debate may be especially heated among Senate Democrats seen as potential 2028 presidential contenders, a group that includes Van Hollen, Slotkin and Kelly, CNN noted. With the leadership vote a month away, Schumer's path back to the majority leader's office runs through a caucus that is still deciding what it wants its new power to mean.
Sources: CNN, "Schumer faces skepticism among some Democrats over majority leader role" (Nov. 7, 2026, updated); Newsmax, "Chuck Schumer Faces Dem Revolt Over Senate Leadership" (Nov. 9, 2026). Event date verified: the dissent was voiced at the Crooked Con post-election gathering in Washington on Saturday, November 7, 2026, with follow-up interviews on Sunday, November 8; the Democratic leadership vote is expected in December 2026.
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