Chuck Schumer was re-elected Thursday as leader of the Democrats in the U.S. Senate for the next term, in which the party will regain control of the upper chamber after better-than-expected midterm results.
Schumer, senator for New York, has been unanimously reelected along with the rest of the candidates to lead the Democrats in the upper chamber. In 2021 he made history by becoming the first Jew to lead one of the two parties in Congress.
The rest of the Democratic commands in the Senate are occupied by Patty Murray, who will be the ‘number two’ of the party in this chamber, Dick Durbin, in charge of overseeing party discipline; and Debbie Stabenow, as chairwoman of the Democratic committee.
Schumer’s re-election comes shortly after it was confirmed that Democrats will have a narrow margin of control in the Senate after Raphael Warnock took his Georgia seat earlier this week, gaining two more seats than Republicans.
This will be the first time Schumer will have an absolute majority after in previous years, Democrats had to rely on the casting vote of U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris as Senate President to break the 50-seat tie in which several pieces of legislation fell.
In the other chamber of Congress, it will be Hakeem Jeffries who will lead the Democrats, after two decades of leadership by veteran Nancy Pelosi.
