Jeffries faces divided Democrats atop largest House majority since Obama's first year

Moderates claim larger mandate as DSA-backed freshmen push taxes on the wealthy

Presumptive House Speaker Hakeem Jeffries will preside over at least 254 seats, the largest majority in the House of Representatives since President Barack Obama’s first year in office. The Wall Street Journal described the incoming caucus as containing some of the widest variations in positions in recent years, with freshmen linked to the Democratic Socialists of America alongside dozens of lawmakers from deep-red Trump districts. Jeffries, who would be the first Black speaker, faces the challenge of managing those differences while Democrats seek to cut costs for Americans, end the war in Iran and act as a brake on President Trump during his final two years in the White House.

The morning after Election Day, Jeffries strode into a news conference with members of his leadership team and tried to keep the focus on the economy. “We’re humbled by the outcome and we know we have to undertake with the seriousness of purpose a relentless effort to make life more affordable for everyday Americans, for working-class Americans, for middle-class Americans and for all those who aspire to be part of the middle class,” the presumptive speaker told the assembled reporters. Behind the scenes, rank-and-file members were already jockeying to secure their own priorities and committee seats. The landslide surprised the party’s own operatives: when an early batch of results from Indiana showed wide Democratic margins, aides huddled at Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee headquarters thought their data tracker was glitching, people inside the room said. The Wall Street Journal assessed that noisy factions, such as the socialists, would pose less of a hindrance because Jeffries would not need their votes for measures largely supported by the rest of the caucus.

Those who have worked closely with Jeffries describe the 56-year-old former corporate lawyer as deeply cautious, guarded and strategic in how he presents his ideas in public; on the House floor, he is known to speak alliteratively in three-part lists. Colleagues say he prefers consensus over confrontation behind the scenes and delays thorny issues, while the Democratic caucus contains nearly a dozen different groups. Some progressives have questioned whether Jeffries can manage the competing demands and factions — and fights — of a speakership role. The Wall Street Journal characterized that role as requiring transactions, organization and swift decisions and also noted that Nancy Pelosi, who served two stints as speaker during the Trump and Biden presidencies, “was known for having a heavy hand.”

Former Rep. Steve Israel of New York, a Jeffries ally, said the incoming speaker was up to the task of holding his caucus together. “The way he became Democratic leader and now soon to be speaker of the House was by listening to members and sifting through their often conflicting desires and priorities and building a coalition—that’s hard to do,” Israel said. “He has the advantage of a much larger margin than I think most people anticipated.” Rep. Jared Huffman of California, a vice chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, said, “This is just a big and sometimes unruly caucus” and “holding it together, keeping everybody rowing in the same direction is just an enormously difficult job.” The coming months, he said, “will show how much he’s willing to play the heavy when that is needed to keep folks in line.”

A group of freshmen endorsed by the DSA and other progressives is compiling an agenda that The Wall Street Journal described as deeply divisive and hard to manage within Jeffries’s newly empowered caucus: expanding taxes on the wealthy, advancing Medicare for All, implementing an arms embargo on Israel and abolishing Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Over the past few months, lawmakers have spoken with Jeffries to sway which legislative priorities will be at the top of the ticket in January, and Medicare for All — an item he had not committed to — has been a key progressive ask. Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington, a leader in the Congressional Progressive Caucus, criticized Jeffries for demurring on her Medicare for All bill, which he once supported. “He has been very cautious, in part, to keep a diverse caucus with him, but that does not work in a moment when the country is desperate for real bold leadership,” she said. “He can be at the front of that and I hope he is, otherwise it will turn into a fight.”

Members of the New Democrat Coalition, a moderate group expected to have about 140 House seats, want to prioritize tackling inflation and high costs and say they have a bigger mandate — and scores more members — than the party’s left flank. “One bloc, on any one issue, isn’t going to be able to hold things up like we’ve seen on the Republican side, where for the last two years, three Republicans can shut down Congress,” said Rep. Brad Schneider of Illinois, who leads the coalition. “Hopefully, there won’t be folks…throwing verbal Molotov cocktails and trying to burn things down.” Before the election, centrist members criticized the socialists’ plan to push their agenda. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Texas said his cohort, the centrist Blue Dogs, could just as easily exercise similar leverage, but said the blocs should draw a lesson from how such moves by Republican factions undermined former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and current Speaker Mike Johnson. “It’s a mistake,” Cuellar said. “They weakened McCarthy. They weakened Johnson, and we’re smarter than that.”

DSA-linked freshmen still plan to pressure Jeffries in discussions on speakership votes. Incoming Rep. Chris Rabb of Pennsylvania, who was endorsed by the DSA, said Jeffries would still have to ask for his vote and would need to tell Rabb that Jeffries has an ear for the populist agenda and for the constituencies, including Black women and young voters, that helped Democrats win. “I’m nobody’s rubber stamp,” Rabb said. “If leadership doesn’t listen to the populist agenda, there will be consequences that we suffer as a party,” he said Thursday.

Jeffries is a Brooklyn native who represents a central swath of the New York City borough, and newly elected socialists whose districts are close to his own have made demands of him. His discomfort with that faction emerged last year, when he waited months to endorse New York’s now-mayor Zohran Mamdani, citing “areas of principled disagreement.” He has since warmed publicly to Mamdani and has spoken with an array of incoming House Democrats, including most of the six tied to the DSA. In an interview with The Wall Street Journal last week, Jeffries downplayed divisions: “We’ve worked very hard in order to actually maintain significant unity, which we’ve managed to do in the face of tremendous pressure from the outside to try to divide us.”

Jeffries’s past support of Israel has put him at odds with scores of congressional Democrats who want the United States to cut off military aid over the war in Gaza, a change Trump recently said should happen by year’s end. A longtime recipient of campaign donations from Aipac, a top Israeli-American lobbying group, Jeffries voted against an amendment led by Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky that aimed to slash Israel aid, while Rep. Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the incoming House majority leader and Jeffries’s No. 2, voted for the cuts. About 48% of Democrats voted to cut the aid package. The Wall Street Journal characterized that vote as putting Jeffries out of step with a growing faction of the party that uses support for Israel as a test for candidates.

Jeffries and his leadership team opted not to try to influence the vote even as some members looked for guidance. The Wall Street Journal said Jeffries has worked to protect his image by sidestepping political hot potatoes rather than risk a burn. Jeffries argued the amendment was too broad and would impact humanitarian efforts and refugee resettlement, while saying there is a need for a “major reset” and that Israel has “severely damaged its standing in the U.S.” Jayapal said, “He’s gonna have to reset completely the relationship with Aipac and Israel.” “Otherwise, it’s gonna continue to be a problem for our Democratic base to have trust in him.”

Jeffries grew up in Brooklyn’s politically influential Cornerstone Baptist Church and got his start in the New York state assembly. He clinched an open House seat in 2012, entering Congress as a 42-year-old freshman. Jeffries pushed for criminal justice reform and teamed with Republicans to overhaul federal prisons and help artists fight copyright disputes. Members of the Congressional Black Caucus moved quickly to elevate him, and former Speaker Nancy Pelosi eventually took him under her wing. He gravitated toward roles as a messenger, taking on policy and communications jobs within the caucus. Outgoing Rep. John Larson of Connecticut recalled his conversation with Jim Clyburn, then a high-ranking Black House leader: “I can remember saying to Jim Clyburn when I was caucus chair, the first time he got up and spoke before the caucus, I said, ‘Jim…that’s going to be the first Black speaker of the House.’” “You could see that everybody in the room was going, ‘Wow, he’s different.’”

The fight that raised Jeffries’s profile came in 2018, when he defied calls from leading Democrats to oppose the prison-overhaul First Step Act, which aimed to reduce the prison population. In a seven-page letter, he bashed Democratic colleagues, painting opposition to the bipartisan bill as unrealistic. On the floor, more than two-thirds of Democrats stood behind him to pass the bill, whose final version Trump later signed into law. Rank-and-file House Democrats credit Jeffries with maintaining unity during the lengthy 2025 federal government shutdown, noting that he was adamant that the caucus make the fight about healthcare benefits. He held his caucus together, while Chuck Schumer took heavy criticism as he struggled to keep his Senate colleagues on the same page. Jeffries “was very disciplined on that,” said Rep. Madeleine Dean of Pennsylvania.

As Jeffries has grown in stature, The Wall Street Journal described him as one of Trump’s biggest foils in the House and a ballast for the party’s scattered demands. In the fall of 2025, Jeffries had his first — and only — Oval Office encounter with Trump, who responded by posting memes that mocked Jeffries with a fake sombrero and mustache. During a rally with Democrats on the House steps, Jeffries called the video racist and warned Trump, “when I’m back in the Oval Office, say it to my face.” As Democrats swept to victory, Jeffries taped an Instagram video wearing a black quarter-zip adorned with the U.S. House seal, declaring: “Donald Trump is shook right now. Pete Hegseth is shook right now. Todd Blanche, the so-called attorney general, is shook right now. And they should be.”

As Democrats pursued the majority this year, Jeffries purposely resisted calls to offer a specific agenda — reminiscent of Newt Gingrich’s “Contract with America” in 1994 — because he wanted to avoid the potential for intraparty fights over policy during the campaign, according to people familiar with the planning. Inside his campaign operation, Jeffries told allies to think about Democratic control of the House in three categories: the first 100 hours, the first 100 days and the first year. The goal was to show House Democrats acting swiftly to address inflation and high costs as soon as they returned to power. “We want to hit the ground running and come out fast and furious so that it is clear this is a dramatic change in the direction for America,” Jeffries told a group of pastors and local activists during a campaign stop in Omaha last week. He said to expect “very early on” legislation to reverse cuts to Medicaid and Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits and to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits that lapsed last year, measures on which Democrats are largely united. He said the House would move quickly to “end the Trump tariffs” and “stop this war in Iran.” “Those are five things,” he said. His economic plans align with those of Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, where Democrats will hold 54 seats and are awaiting calls on two close elections that could raise the total to 56 next year.

Democrats, who will also control the Senate in January, plan to use their new power to investigate those who appear to have bent the law or enriched themselves, including the president and his family. Rep. Robert Garcia of California, the incoming chairman of the House Oversight Committee, has outlined plans to investigate business dealings of Trump family members and key advisers, corporate donors to the White House ballroom and other issues. After Trump announced Friday that top White House adviser Stephen Miller would become his next chief of staff, Jeffries called Miller “a dangerous xenophobe and reckless extremist who has American blood on his hands. His presence in government should be eradicated like a malignant tumor. Fire him today” in a post on X. Garcia said Democrats on his committee “will continue to investigate Miller for his misconduct, and we will fight against his hateful policies in Congress and the courts,” adding: “Stephen Miller should lawyer up.”

Jeffries has also promised to target Trump’s defense secretary, telling the Omaha audience, “I believe that in the majority, one of our first acts will be to run Pete Hegseth out of town.” Articles of impeachment have already been introduced against Hegseth by Republican Rep. Thomas Massie, alleging that the defense secretary ignored Congress’s direction to withdraw U.S. forces from Iran and laws intended to minimize civilian casualties. Jeffries said Wednesday that no member of the caucus had raised impeaching Trump with him. Members are divided between those who believe Trump has already committed impeachable offenses and should be held responsible, and those who worry the move would alienate swing voters and paint the new Congress as distracted and backward-looking.

Jeffries was already dealing with members who departed from the Democratic agenda before outgoing Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan endorsed former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers in the state’s high-profile Senate contest. Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, who won reelection, and retiring Rep. Jared Golden of Maine, both centrists, voted with Republicans in September to advance a rule package supporting a bill protecting lobster fishing. The Wall Street Journal said the vote also allowed Republicans to move forward with a resolution condemning socialism that was designed to embarrass Democrats. Jeffries called the move a breach of trust and argued that the members’ actions warranted a response, but he has yet to give one. “We’ll have a family discussion,” he said during his Omaha campaign stop. Stevens later watched Rogers lose handily to Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. Jeffries accused Stevens of “a terrible decision” that “blindsided everyone,” and he delayed any punishment until after the midterms.

Jeffries has kept up informal chats with Pelosi on the House floor or by phone and has arranged meetings with her every few months, according to a Democrat familiar with their exchanges. The speaker emerita — who is retiring from her California seat after this term — does not offer unsolicited advice.