Neither Maryland senator is getting in front of calls to replace Chuck Schumer as Senate minority leader.
As criticism of Schumer’s leadership rises after Democrats’ collapse on the shutdown, you have to strain to hear anything but loyalty from Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks.
“Right now the focus of our caucus should be on how we can unite to wage the battles ahead — from bringing down the cost of living, to addressing the health care crisis, to confronting Trump’s lawless actions,” Van Hollen said.
“I will continue to work with any Democrat, including Leader Schumer, who will fight back against this president and his party,” Alsobrooks said.
Their message is clear: Move on.
There will be no palace coup among Senate Democrats, even after Schumer let the only leverage the party had in a GOP-controlled government slip away. None of the Senate Democrats so committed to the fight, Van Hollen and Alsobrooks among them, shows signs of launching a revolt.
Schumer’s grasp on out-of-power leadership is secure for a lot of reasons, but maybe chief among them is that no one else wants the job.
“Half of the senators want to be president,” retired Sen. Ben Cardin said. “I don’t think the other half wants to be minority leader.”
Maryland’s congressional Democrats are largely keeping their heads down after 44 days of SNAP cuts, airport delays and lost paychecks ended ignominiously. They all voted against ending it.
Calls in Congress for Schumer to step down before 2028 are coming exclusively from the House, where members have no say in the choice.
Seven months ago, U.S. Rep. Glenn Ivey of Maryland was the first to publicly call on Schumer to step down.
“I respect Chuck Schumer. I think he had a great career,” Ivey said at a raucous town hall in Suitland. “But it may be time for Senate Democrats to get a new leader.”
After eight Senate Democrats broke and surrendered the shutdown fight Monday, Ivey isn’t reupping his criticism. He wants the party to focus on winning the House next year with a message centered on affordability.
“I think there’s a fair point that’s been raised,” Ivey said.
The senators who voted with Republicans to fund the government into January said they didn’t think their party could win an extension of Obamacare tax credits. They negotiated a future vote — essentially nothing.
The outcome was incomprehensible to Cardin, who is building the Ben & Myrna Cardin Center for Civic Engagement & Civil Discourse at Towson University.
“I can’t figure this one out,” he said. “They really took victory away from themselves.”
Election results in New York, New Jersey, Virginia and California showed Democrats were changing the national conversation with the shutdown, convincing many voters that President Donald Trump and the Republicans are at fault for higher grocery, housing and insurance costs.
Schumer reportedly was aware of talks on compromise but failed to block them. He voted no on the stopgap funding bill, but his endgame was never clear.
He is three years from his next reelection campaign in New York. He could retire, or he might face a charismatic progressive primary opponent, U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. That’s a long way off.
Criticism in the House is just howling in frustration. Silence in the Senate is more telling, and as much a statement on Schumer’s style as a sign of the potential for party rebellion.
Cardin said Schumer calls all 47 members of the caucus multiple times daily, checking on what they need and where they are on votes. Unlike past caucus leaders, he doesn’t press them to vote against their conscience.
“Every senator knows he has their back,” said Cardin, who represented Maryland in the Senate for 18 years after 20 in the House.
Replacing Schumer, who represents New York and has led Senate Democrats since 2017, would require 24 votes and a senator with the desire for an all-consuming job.
“It’s a double-edged sword,” Cardin said. “It’s all you do, it takes over your whole life.”
Schumer surrounds himself with potential replacements: Tammy Baldwin, Mark Warner, Elizabeth Warren and Cory Booker. None appears interested in challenging him.
“Schumer isn’t going to go under,” Cardin said. “You have to have a replacement ready.”
Van Hollen would be a long shot for a leadership post. He’s heightened his national profile this year and generally lines up on the progressive side of the party.
Yet, Van Hollen, his staff says, is focused elsewhere.
On Monday, he’ll be a keynote speaker at “Money. Message. Millionaires,” a forum in D.C. hosted by a nonpartisan group called Patriotic Millionaires.
Van Hollen will talk about the economy, affordability and the Democratic Party’s path to ’26 and ’28.
The closest he has come to criticizing Schumer was after he refused to endorse Zohran Mamdani, the democratic socialist mayor-elect of New York City.
Van Hollen told Forbes he hoped all Democrats would endorse Mamdani, especially those from New York. But he didn’t call out the minority leader by name.
When a CNN correspondent asked him if he had confidence in Schumer after the shutdown vote, Van Hollen held back again.
“I’m disappointed in the result, but we will fight on another day.”
As a freshman, Alsobrooks is a good example of how Schumer wins loyalty.
He donated $10,000 directly to her 2024 election campaign, and political action committees he controls pumped more than $1 million into advertising in the two months leading up to Election Day.
When she held a reception on her first day in the Senate, she was running late. Schumer showed up on time, then waited by himself off to one side — almost unnoticed — until the first Black woman senator from Maryland arrived for a joint appearance.
And he’s worked with her on shutdown-inspired legislation. Just days before the capitulation, they introduced a bill to prohibit layoffs during a shutdown — a key statement for a senator from a state with more than 120,000 federal employees.
In the days after the shutdown vote, she passed on the opportunity to criticize him.
Instead, she offered the same message that Schumer, Van Hollen and other Democrats in Congress are relying on to get to November 2026.
“The American people in our most recent elections have said that this is a failed economy under President Trump,” she said.
“It’s shameful.”
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