Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland says he is exploring a 2028 presidential run, joining a growing scramble inside a Democratic Party still searching for direction after its 2024 defeat.
Van Hollen, a two-term Democrat who has spent most of his career in the shadow of bigger-name progressives, went on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday and told host Kristen Welker that he has already traveled to New Hampshire and Iowa, the two states that traditionally launch presidential campaigns. He did not announce an exploratory committee or any formal campaign structure, but he used the phrase "kicking the tires" three separate times during the interview, leaving little doubt about where he is headed.
The Maryland senator framed his interest around a blunt admission: Democrats still have not answered the question voters asked in 2024. Van Hollen told Welker:
"Look, what happened in 2024 is that voters were so upset with the status quo that they voted for a convicted felon, Donald Trump. And my view is Democrats need to really stand for something. We need to be against the status quo."
That characterization of President Trump is Van Hollen's own framing, not an independent conclusion drawn by NBC or anyone else in the interview. What is notable is the concession buried inside it: a sitting Democratic senator acknowledging that his party lost because voters preferred a candidate Democrats spent years trying to disqualify over whatever the Democratic Party was offering.
When Welker pressed him on what "kicking the tires" actually meant, Van Hollen confirmed he had visited New Hampshire and had been invited to Iowa the previous summer. He offered no dates for the New Hampshire trip and named no specific events or hosts for either visit. But the destinations speak for themselves. New Hampshire and Iowa are not vacation spots for senators with no presidential ambitions.
Van Hollen cast the travel and the public musing as part of a broader internal reckoning inside the Democratic Party.
"I think there's a great deal of churning within the Democratic Party, and I support that. As I said, I think we need this healthy debate because I don't think Democrats have put forward a clear alternative to the Trump administration."
That "churning" is visible well beyond Van Hollen's interview. Democrats have spent the months since 2024 watching their bench fracture in real time. In Florida, Angie Nixon ousted impeachment witness Alex Vindman in a Senate primary that stunned the party establishment. In Michigan, another Democrat dropped out of a Senate race weeks before the primary as internal divisions widened.
Welker gave Van Hollen a final chance to sharpen his answer, asking him point-blank whether he was mulling a 2028 run. He did not say no.
"Bottom line, I think Democrats need to be very clear, not just what we're against, but what we're for. And I very much want to be part of that debate. And I am kicking the tires, testing the waters."
Van Hollen enters a conversation that already includes far more prominent names. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has surged past California Gov. Gavin Newsom in early 2028 Democratic nomination odds, a shift that tells its own story about where the party's energy sits. Van Hollen, a senator with a lower national profile, would need to carve out a lane that neither the progressive wing nor the establishment governors have already claimed.
His pitch, based on the NBC interview, centers on economic populism, the argument that Democrats must offer a concrete economic program for working people rather than simply running against Trump. He repeated variations of that theme throughout the exchange, returning again and again to the idea that the party has not answered the basic question of what it stands for.
Whether that message can break through in a primary field likely to include bigger fundraisers and louder voices is an open question. Van Hollen has not disclosed any formal steps, no exploratory committee filing, no campaign staff, no fundraising apparatus. What he has is a willingness to say out loud what many Democrats have been whispering: the party lost in 2024 because it had nothing to sell.
The broader Democratic landscape reinforces the sense of a party in flux. Sen. Bernie Sanders recently demanded that Democrats ban super PACs from party primaries, singling out AIPAC, a move that deepened existing fault lines over money and influence. Meanwhile, a Michigan Democrat's abrupt exit from a Senate race before the primary underscored how unstable the party's foundation remains heading into the next cycle.
Van Hollen deserves a sliver of credit for diagnosing the disease plainly. Democrats lost in 2024 because voters rejected what the party was offering. That is a fact his own party's leadership has been slow to state in public. Saying it on national television takes a certain nerve.
But diagnosis is not treatment. Van Hollen's interview was long on acknowledgment and short on specifics. He said Democrats need an economy "that really does work for everybody, especially working people." He did not say how. He said the party needs to be clear about what it stands for. He did not say what that is. Three repetitions of "kicking the tires" is not a platform. It is a bumper sticker on a car that has not left the driveway.
The senator also faces a credibility gap that no Sunday-show appearance can close on its own. He has been a reliable vote for the same Democratic leadership whose failures he now identifies. If the party's economic message was hollow in 2024, Van Hollen was part of the caucus that hollowed it out. Voters in New Hampshire and Iowa tend to notice that kind of thing.
Democrats can hold as many "healthy debates" as they like. Until someone in the field offers a program that working Americans can weigh against what they already have, the churning Van Hollen describes will stay exactly that, motion without direction.
