Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader who could become the nation’s first Black speaker next year, has watched this term as Mike Johnson, the current Republican speaker, struggled with tight margins and an unruly membership, making the House virtually ungovernable.
Should he succeed in executing Democrats’ plan to take over the chamber, Mr. Jeffries could find himself in a similar bind.
A wave of young, anti-establishment candidates who are refusing to pledge their support to Mr. Jeffries have triumphed in recent primaries across the country, in large part because Democratic voters are reconsidering the party’s longtime support for Israel. Those wins have underscored deep frustration with the status quo and party leaders whom many voters view as captured by special interests and not fighting hard enough to change a system that is failing them.
Mr. Jeffries, who has led House Democrats in the minority since 2022, in some ways embodies that establishment mold. He is a cautious politician whom the left views as holding back some of its progressive goals, but who takes pride in having kept the caucus mostly united in fighting back against President Trump.
His controlled approach was on display on Tuesday at his office in Brooklyn, where he gave a wide-ranging, 45-minute interview, his first since the primaries. He played down the significance of the left-wing surge, an approach that is not likely to mollify those seeking compromises from Democratic leadership.
“I don’t think we’re going to have that problem,” Mr. Jeffries said of potential troubles with his left flank, “and I also don’t think we’re going to have that tight of a majority, as was the case with Mike Johnson.” He compared the current political environment to the 2018 midterms during Mr. Trump’s first term, when Democrats won 41 seats.
That year also brought to Washington a wave of young progressives who posed a challenge to leadership. This time around, Melat Kiros, the 29-year-old democratic socialist who defeated a longtime incumbent in Denver last week, has said she will not support Mr. Jeffries for speaker next year.
And Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist who defeated a longtime ally of Mr. Jeffries in New York, has taken a wait-and-see approach when asked about backing a party leader who did not support her and to whom she has no allegiance.
Mr. Jeffries said that he had not spoken with Ms. Kiros or Ms. Avila Chevalier but that he planned to do so in the coming weeks. But he said he did not view their victories as a referendum on his own brand of Democratic politics.
“Ever since I’ve been in Congress, there have been aggressive primary challenges in different ways, and usually a handful of incumbents fall short,” Mr. Jeffries said. “I don’t think it’s an overall critique of the party.”
In Mr. Jeffries’s view, primaries in New York City overshadowed a more important win: That same day, Cait Conley, a combat veteran, won the Democratic primary and will challenge Representative Mike Lawler, Republican of New York, in a key swing district.
“He’s not coming back to Congress,” Mr. Jeffries said of a lawmaker he has personally clashed with.
Mr. Jeffries also expressed frustration about the view that he is too close to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the pro-Israel lobbying group that has become a toxic brand for Democrats, and defended the party’s strategy for pushing back against Mr. Trump as a unifying success.
“As new colleagues come in to serve, we are all going to have to blend together,” Mr. Jeffries said, describing the Democratic caucus as a “beautiful mosaic” that is united on more issues than it is divided on.
Over the past year, he has kept the caucus mostly united in voting to extend Affordable Care Act tax credits, release the Epstein files and rebuke the Trump administration’s tariffs, among other issues.
But he is now facing a critical issue on which the caucus has become deeply divided: providing military aid to Israel.
He would not say how he plans to vote next week on an amendment that has been offered by Representative Thomas Massie, Republican of Kentucky, that would cut all $3.3 billion in foreign aid to Israel.
That measure will be House Democrats’ first up-or-down vote in this Congress solely on the issue of cutting taxpayer subsidies to Israel, after three incumbent Democrats in New York lost primaries in which their support for the country became major issues and the party’s support for Israel has declined sharply.
“I have committed, as per the request of members of the caucus, to work through this as a family before we articulate a position,” Mr. Jeffries said. Democrats have held two meetings to discuss the amendment, a highly unusual move, and dozens of members are expected to vote for it.
Mr. Jeffries would not specify what legislation regarding Israel he could bring to the floor next year, only reiterating his support for a two-state solution and a crackdown on violence by Israeli settlers.
He also said he was not influenced by AIPAC, which has endorsed him for years and last cycle raised almost $1 million for his campaign and $90,000 for the fund supporting House Democrats. (Mr. Jeffries last year for the first time also accepted an endorsement from J Street, the center-left lobbying group that promotes a two-state solution in the Middle East.)
“Nobody can point to a single instance of me taking a vote that had anything to do with being influenced by any outside group,” Mr. Jeffries said. “I challenge people to do that.” He blamed “people outside of Congress” for pushing a narrative that he was beholden to lobbying groups.
“You’d be hard-pressed to find another member of Congress who actually is raising more from everyday Americans in small increments,” he said. “The numbers actually speak for themselves.”
But he added: “I represent one of the largest Jewish communities in the country. I believe in Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish and democratic state. And therefore, there are going to be pro-Israel donors in the communities I represent, who may support me because of my support for the safety and security of the state of Israel.”
Still, Mr. Jeffries insisted that Democrats would come together despite ideological differences.
The “unifying force,” he said, would be a “shared commitment to stopping the extremism and dealing with the out-of-control cost of living.” The winning message that Democrats would hammer home through November, he said, would revolve around efforts to drive down high costs across the board. “That includes housing, gas, goods, groceries, utilities and caregiving,” he said.
The super PAC aligned with Mr. Jeffries and its affiliated group raised $94 million last quarter, compared with $51 million in the second quarter of 2024. The groups also out-raised the Republican-aligned Congressional Leadership Fund in the first quarter, which rarely happens.
Given the positive landscape for Democrats, Mr. Jeffries said he fully expected Mr. Trump to try to meddle in the results of the midterms and is “operating under the assumption that Donald Trump and MAGA extremists are going to try to steal this election.”
But he noted that 20 of the seats that Democrats hope to flip were in states where Democrats control the levers of state government.
“The overwhelming majority of pickup opportunities for House Democrats happen to be in states where you have enlightened officials who are serving as governors, secretaries of state or attorneys general — that’s just the reality,” he said.
Mr. Jeffries would not say whether Mr. Trump is correct in his belief that Democrats will rush to impeach him next year should they retake the majority.
“We’ve not ruled anything in and not ruled anything out in terms of accountability,” he said, but added that the focus would be on forcing out major Trump officials.
“We’ve got to make sure we continue to get rid of toxic Trump cabinet secretaries,” he said. “Pete Hegseth in my view should be next on the list.”
Even while he expressed confidence that Democrats would win back the House, Mr. Jeffries refrained from predicting what would come next.
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it,” he said when asked if he might face multiple contested votes for the speakership the way former Speaker Kevin McCarthy did, or how he would negotiate with possible holdouts. “I will work hard to earn all of my colleagues’ support.”
With no other Democrat yet stepping forward to challenge him, it is unlikely the incoming faction of anti-establishment members would block Mr. Jeffries’s path. He said time will tell.
“We’ll be judged by whether we are able to take back the House,” Mr. Jeffries said. “After that, it’ll be in the caucus’s hands to decide who is in the best position to lead.”
