Jamie Raskin beat cancer twice. Now he turns to his political future.

For Raskin, once again a major inflection point in his career coincided with a major personal trial. Over the past two years, he has both mourned his son, Tommy, and confronted his own mortality, in each case while serving in some of the most demanding leadership positions in Congress — the sort of indefatigability and “clarity of purpose,” as one Democrat put it, that has become part of Raskin’s identity.

The life-altering collisions had rolled in like one-two punches. Six days after Tommy died by suicide, Raskin returned to work at the Capitol only to flee a mob of pro-Trump rioters on Jan. 6, 2021, galvanizing Raskin to lead House Democrats’ impeachment charge. In December, six days after being voted the top Democrat on the powerful House Oversight Committee, he announced he was diagnosed with diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. He scheduled chemo on weekends and during stretches when the House was out of session, assuring colleagues he was not going anywhere.

Now on the heels of recovery, the question weighing on Raskin, and on the lips of virtually every Maryland politico, is where he will steer his own political future next, following the announcement by Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.) that he won’t seek reelection in 2024. As of that moment — May 24 at 2 p.m. in Raskin’s office, just before a post-chemo virtual checkup with his doctor — not even Raskin appeared to know what path he was leaning toward. “You’re catching me in the middle of a bit of an existential crisis here,” he said, wearing the trademark bandanna gifted to him as a hand-me-down from rocker Steve Van Zandt.