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. He defeated the Republican nominee, Christine O'Donnell, to succeed Ted Kaufman, who had been appointed to the seat when Joe Biden resigned to become Vice President of the United States. He was elected to a full term in 2014. Coons is the chair of the Senate Ethics Committee. His other committee assignments include Appropriations, Foreign Relations, Judiciary, and Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He previously served as ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on African Affairs and the Judiciary Subcommittee on Bankruptcy and the Courts.Coons co-chaired the 2017 and 2019 National Prayer Breakfasts and co-chairs the weekly Senate Prayer Breakfast. The New York Times called him an "effective" emissary of Joe Biden to former and current Republican lawmakers in Biden's 2020 campaign for president.Coons will become Delaware's senior senator in January 2025 when Tom Carper retires from the Senate.