Christopher A. Coons DEMDemocrat

Christopher Andrew Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the junior United States senator from Delaware since 2010. A member of the Democratic Party, Coons served as the county executive of New Castle County from 2005 to 2010. Raised in Hockessin, Delaware, Coons graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts, where he joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity. He 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 at 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. Coons served as president of the New Castle County Council from 2001 to 2005 and county executive of New Castle County from 2005 to 2010. 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. Coons contested the 2010 Senate special election for Delaware.