WFP thanks Leader Schumer for a decade of service and urges expanded caucus to answer voters’ call for change

NEW YORK — The Working Families Party is supporting Senator Chris Van Hollen of Maryland for Senate Majority Leader, and calling on the incoming Democratic caucus to choose a leader who will meet the urgency of this moment and deliver for working people.

The endorsement follows a letter from WFP National Director Maurice Mitchell and New York WFP State Director Jasmine Gripper to Senator Chuck Schumer. The letter thanked him for his leadership and urged him not to seek another term as Democratic Leader.

“Voters demanded change last week, and Chris Van Hollen is the right choice to make sure Democrats in the Senate deliver,” said Maurice Mitchell, National Director of the Working Families Party. “His bold stands on guaranteed health care, confronting a lawless ICE, and cutting off weapon’s sales to Israel show he’s the fighter we need to lead a new caucus in a historic moment.”

Jasmine Gripper, State Director of the New York Working Families Party, said “The voters who just elected a new Senate majority are asking for a new generation of leadership that will deliver on housing, health care, and childcare. We believe Senator Van Hollen is the right choice for this moment to lead that fight, and we are proud to stand with him.”

Van Hollen, who announced his candidacy Thursday, has built a strong record as a fighter for working people:

• Van Hollen is a co-sponsor of the Medicare for All Act and has said Democrats must stop tinkering around the edges of a broken system. 

• In April 2025, Van Hollen flew to El Salvador to demand the return of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the Maryland man wrongly deported by the Trump administration. After federal agents killed two people in Minnesota, he urged the Senate to withhold new DHS funding until enforcement changed. 

• Van Hollen took a bold and early stand to condition aid and block offensive weapons sales to the Israeli government in response to the Gaza genocide. 

WFP is calling on every returning and newly elected Democratic senator to back Van Hollen and to commit to the agenda voters demanded: taxing the rich to fund the needs of working families, guaranteeing health care and childcare, lowering the cost of housing, ending the corrosive influence of money in politics, and making our democracy work for the many, not the few.

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The Working Families Party is the political party of the working-class. Founded in New York in 1998, WFP has recruited, trained, and elected thousands of leaders who fight for working families at every level of government. Next year, sixteen WFP members of Congress and two senators will join the Democratic caucus.