Chris Van Hollen Says He’s the ‘Underdog’ in Senate Majority Leader Challenge – But Has 10-Plus Pledges Against Schumer

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) formally launched his bid to challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) for Senate majority leader, while acknowledging that he’s the “underdog” in the race. The senator from Maryland stopped by MS NOW’s “The Briefing with Jen Psaki” on Thursday, where he confirmed that he had decided to run for the Senate majority leader position. “This is not about any one individual, but it is about answering the call of the American people,” he told host Jen Psaki. “We saw a huge outburst of democracy on Election Day — red states, blue states, purple states — and it wasn’t only a rejection of Donald Trump and his corruption and his wars and his cruelty, it was also about a call for a larger change to take on a broken economic system that’s rigged in favor of the very wealthy against working people, led by a corrupt political system.” Per Van Hollen, the midterms results were a message from the public to “reject the status quo and to reject business as usual.” He added: “And to do that, I think we need new leadership.” And so, Van Hollen is set to go against Schumer, who has been a leader on Capitol Hill for Democrats for nearly 10 years, during the election in December. As for where Van Hollen stands in this fight? He called himself the “underdog.” “Am I the underdog? Yes,” he said. “You’re talking about an incumbent who uses the power of incumbency to, you know, provide deals to people.” However, Van Hollen defended that was “part of the problem,” adding, “We should have a little bit of democracy in the Senate Democratic Caucus. You mentioned some of the new people, you know, one of the things they heard on the campaign trail led them to say they’re not going to support our current majority leader.” When grilled by Psaki on the number of pledges of support he’s received in private, Van Hollen said it was “more than 10,” adding, “We have a lot of people.” Van Hollen’s announcement comes on the heels of Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.) declaring that they would not support Schumer as leader. Additionally, Senators-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-Mich.) and Peggy Flanagan (D-Minn.) also voiced support for a Van Hollen bid this week.