If House Minority Leader
The New York Democrat is poised to become speaker in 2027 if his party flips the House this November. Jeffries is popular with his caucus, and while he may have to make some promises to secure the speakership, I haven’t talked to a single House Democrat who thinks the gavel is anyone else’s.
The real question, then, isn’t whether Jeffries will become speaker if Democrats take the House. It’s: what then?
Put another way: Will he be like California Democrat
Jeffries’ style, at least on its face, isn’t quite like Pelosi’s or McCarthy’s. His colleagues see him as a quiet, thoughtful consensus builder. He’s less iron-fisted than Pelosi, at least as minority leader, and his members say he’s skilled at listening to all corners of his conference. That could make him a weak speaker — Pelosi ran her caucus, not the other way around.
Kowtowing to the whims of House Republicans led to McCarthy’s downfall. Yes, there were personalities at play, and plenty of pieces of personal history that drove eight Republicans to turn on their leader. But at the end of the day, they wouldn’t have been able to oust McCarthy if he hadn’t allowed conservative hardliners to change House rules, allowing just one lawmaker to force a “motion to vacate” vote.
So if he gets the House gavel, the question becomes whether Jeffries can use his distinct leadership style to successfully wrangle 200-some House Democrats. Maybe he doesn’t need to throw a punch (for the children). But if he can’t figure out some way to lead the House majority, Jeffries will be nothing but a footnote in congressional history.
Of course, Jeffries is already leading Democrats. He spent the last four years amping up his party, including with a historically long “magic minute” floor speech, and Democrats are undoubtedly more unified now than they were after their party washed out in the 2024 elections.
Jeffries has also helped advance an impressive number of discharge petitions — once-rare mechanisms by which Democrats and a handful of Republicans can trigger floor votes — in the 119th Congress. He’d argue that Democrats, as the minority party, have done a better job legislating in the House this year than Republicans. No matter who you ask in the House Democratic caucus, they’ll say they need to focus more on affordability, cost of living, or some other term for the economic issues critics say they under-emphasized in 2024.
Getting the chamber in line behind buzzwords, though, is nothing compared to the challenge of actually legislating. Just look at the 2014 midterms, when Republicans won both chambers on their promises to “repeal and replace” Obamacare. When it came time to write a whole new healthcare bill and pass it, things fell apart. More than a decade later, the Affordable Care Act is still the law of the land, much to conservatives’ chagrin.
Jeffries doesn’t need to be Pelosi, but he needs to accomplish roughly the same thing: a coordinated plan of attack against the Trump administration, alongside concrete efforts to lower the cost of living.
At 55 years old, Jeffries is practically a newborn baby by congressional standards. The House speakership could be the launching pad for a political career that places him at the very top of the Democratic party in the years, and even decades, to come.
And such an opportunity doesn’t come around often. Pelosi, now 86, became the House’s top Democrat more than 20 years ago. Senate Minority Leader
Jeffries could serve as speaker for decades, run for president, or otherwise become the face of the Democratic party. Or he could follow McCarthy’s footsteps into forced retirement. Not even he can predict what’s next.