Chris Coons

Christopher Andrew Coons (born September 9, 1963) is an American lawyer and politician serving as the senior United States senator from Delaware, a seat he has held 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.