# Chris Coons ## Summary U.S. Senator from Delaware since November 2010 — won special election to fill Joe Biden's seat after Biden became Vice President. [[Senate Foreign Relations Committee]]; [[Senate Judiciary Committee]]; Senate Appropriations. Centrist-institutionalist Democrat; close Biden ally. Yale Law. Former New Castle County Executive (2005–2010). ## Career highlights - Yale Law School (JD 1992); Yale Divinity School (MA 1992) - Attorney, In-house counsel, W.L. Gore & Associates (mid-1990s – mid-2000s) - New Castle County Council (2001–2005) - New Castle County Executive (2005–2010) - U.S. Senate — November 2010 special election (defeated Christine O'Donnell 57–40) - Re-elected 2014 (55.8%) and 2020 (59.4%) ## Senate career - Foreign Relations Committee — Africa Subcommittee Chair (under D majority); Europe and Regional Security Cooperation Subcommittee - Judiciary Committee — Constitution Subcommittee - Close Biden ally throughout Biden presidency; informal foreign-policy emissary - Moderate voting record within D caucus ## 2026: running for third full term See [[DE-Sen-2026]]. Cook Solid D. Primary challenger Eric Beardsley (progressive) and minor R candidates Katz / Shulli — no competitive threat. ## Palantir pledge (July 2026) Per the AFSC [[Purge Palantir]] campaign page, Coons committed in July 2026 to not accepting or soliciting contributions from "Palantir, its PAC, or any C-Suite Palantir employees" — symbolically significant because [[Palantir]] is incorporated in Delaware, making its home-state senior senator's refusal the counter-campaign's first named-senator political-money win. > [!warning] Single-sourced — the pledge traces only to the campaign's own page ([AFSC — Purge Palantir](https://afsc.org/purge-palantir)); no independent press coverage found as of 2026-08-11. Treat date and exact wording as unconfirmed. ## Related KB entities - [[DE-Sen-2026]] — his 2026 race - TBD: [[Joe Biden]] — predecessor seat-holder, close ally ## Sources - [Wikipedia — Chris Coons](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Coons)