Progressive Chris Van Hollen Challenges Establishment Democrat Chuck Schumer For Senate Majority Leader
Van Hollen says Schumer’s dedication to supporting only establishment Democrats would have cost the party seats in the midterms.
Black News 
Democrats may have gotten their blue wave, but are they ready to acknowledge the call from many voters for a change of the guard? Are establishment Democrats, who tend to lean more moderate than progressive, prepared to grapple with the scores of people who want to see the party shift further left than they’re willing or ready to? Apparently, we’re about to find out, as party leaders are being challenged for their spots.
On Thursday, Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) announced during an interview on MS NOW that he will challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for Senate majority leader.
“In this election, Americans called on us to unrig an economy rigged against working people & fueled by political corruption,” Van Hollen tweeted on Thursday. “To deliver, we need new leadership. This isn’t about any one person – it’s about answering that call.”
According to The New York Times, Van Hollen was elected to the Senate in 2016 after seven terms in the House representing the Washington, D.C., suburbs. Last year, he made headlines when he traveled to a detention center in El Salvador, known as the Terrorism Confinement Center, or CECOT, to meet with Salvadorian migrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia, who was wrongly deported by the Trump administration, which was dead set on portraying him to the public as an MS-13 gang member, despite the glaring lack of evidence that he was, indeed, a member of that gang.
During the visit, Albrego Garcia told Van Hollen how he and other inmates were subjected to daily beatings, torture, terror, and substandard living conditions.
During his MS NOW interview, Van Hollen called out Schumer for only throwing his support behind the moderates he was comfortable supporting.
“We have two senators right now in the United States Senate who wouldn’t be there if the current majority leader had his way,” he told host Jen Psaki. “He supported establishment candidates in the primaries.”
Psaki sought to clarify which two candidates he meant, assuming he meant Maine Senator-elect Troy Jackson and Michigan Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed. Van Hollen was actually referring to El-Sayed and Minnesota Senator-elect Peggy Flanagan, although he acknowledged that Psaki was “right about Maine” as well.
Earlier this week, I wrote about how candidate Angie Nixon, who was narrowly defeated in Florida by GOP incumbent Sen. Ashley Moody, could have picked up another seat for the Dems in Florida, of all places, if the establishment had funded her better. Instead, Nixon, who previously complained that Schumer basically blew her off when she asked him for more funding, came just two points shy of taking that seat.
As for his chances of beating out Schumer for the majority leader position, Van Hollen said he had spoken to a number of Democratic senators, including the incoming members, and did not believe Schumer had a lock on the race. Van Hollen claimed he had “more than 10” of the 55 Democratic senators and senators-elect behind him, while still acknowledging that it would be an uphill battle.
“Am I the underdog? Yes,” he said.
Welp, we’ll have to wait and see how that turns out. Stay tuned.
SEE ALSO:
Democrats Won Big In The Midterms, But They Still Dropped The Ball
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