US Senator Chris Van Hollen seeks to lead Democrats: Who is he?

United States Senator Chris Van Hollen has declared that he is running for Senate majority leader as Democrats prepare to take charge of the US Congress in January, following a Democratic landslide in this month’s midterm elections. Van Hollen said in a post on X late on Thursday that Americans had “called on us to unrig an economy rigged against working people & fueled by political corruption”.

“To deliver, we need new leadership,” he wrote, adding that “this isn’t about any one person – it’s about answering that call. He is a Democratic senator from Maryland who has been in Congress since 2003, rising to prominence for his opposition during the second term of US President Donald Trump.

Van Hollen was born in 1959 in Karachi, Pakistan. His father was a Foreign Service officer who later served as the US deputy assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern and South Asian affairs.