Chris Coons
| Chris Coons | |
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United States Senator from Delaware |
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Assumed office November 15, 2010 Serving with Tom Carper |
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| Preceded by | Ted Kaufman |
| Vice Chair of the Senate Ethics Committee | |
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Assumed office January 3, 2017 |
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| Preceded by | Barbara Boxer |
| County Executive of New Castle County | |
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In office January 4, 2005 – November 15, 2010 |
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| Preceded by | Thomas Gordon |
| Succeeded by | Paul Clark |
| President of the New Castle County Council | |
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In office January 2, 2001 – January 4, 2005 |
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| Preceded by | Stephanie Hansen |
| Succeeded by | Paul Clark |
| Personal details | |
| Born |
Christopher Andrew Coons September 9, 1963 Greenwich, Connecticut, U.S. |
| Political party | Democratic |
| Spouse(s) | Annie Lingenfelter |
| Children | 3 |
| Education |
Amherst College (BA) Yale University (MA, JD) |
| Website | Senate website |
Christopher Andrew "Chris" Coons (born September 9, 1963) is the junior United States Senator from Delaware and a member of the Democratic Party. He won a special election in 2010 to succeed Ted Kaufman, who had been appointed to the seat when Joe Biden resigned to become Vice President. Previously, Coons was the county executive of New Castle County. Coons is the 1983 Truman Scholar from Delaware, and the first recipient of the award to serve in the United States Senate.
A native of Hockessin, Delaware, Coons graduated from Amherst College and received graduate degrees from Yale Divinity School and Yale Law School. He went to work as a volunteer relief worker in Kenya, where he had taken classes in the University of Nairobi, later returning to the U.S. to work for the Coalition for the Homeless in New York. He spent some time as a legal clerk in New York before returning to Delaware in 1996, where he spent eight years as in-house counsel for a materials manufacturing company. In the interim he worked for several nonprofit organizations.
He worked on several political campaigns in his early career, including Ronald Reagan's 1980 presidential campaign. In college he switched from being a Republican to a Democrat, and in 1996 he became a delegate from Wilmington to the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. His political career began in earnest on the New Castle County Council in 2000, where he served as council president. He was elected county executive in 2004 and served for six years. There he balanced the county budget with a surplus in fiscal year 2010 by cutting spending and raising taxes, and the county maintained a AAA bond rating.
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