With Democrats’ decisive victory in the United States’ midterm elections on Tuesday, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York is on the verge of making history as the first Black speaker of the US House of Representatives.
For the 56-year-old congressman, it would be the culmination of almost two decades in office, giving him a central role in Democrats’ efforts to rein in Republican US President Donald Trump in the final two years of his presidency.
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But as Jeffries celebrated the “blue tsunami” that swept Democrats back into power the day after the election, some within the party were not convinced that the congressman, known for his cautious approach to politics and longstanding support for Israel, was the right man for the moment.
An online petition on Change.org calling on lawmakers to choose another speaker had collected more than 980,000 signatures by Saturday morning, while several newly elected progressive lawmakers have not said whether they will support him.
“We believe the Speaker should represent the Democratic voters, not just the Democratic establishment,” the petition reads.
“This is not a foregone conclusion,” it continues, urging others to run for the job.
Jeffries, who has spent years cultivating relationships within the Democratic caucus, now finds himself at the centre of a bigger fight within the party, as its growing progressive wing pushes for a more confrontational approach to Trump and a break with some of the ideas that have defined the Democrats for decades.
From Brooklyn to Democratic leader
Jeffries grew up in Crown Heights, Brooklyn, in the 1970s and 1980s, as the neighbourhood was grappling with the crack cocaine epidemic.
“There was a lot of dysfunction and pain that surrounded the communities that I was raised in, but also a lot of love and compassion from family and friends, and community folks,” he told NYU Law in 2019.
The son of two social workers, Jeffries eventually became a lawyer, tracing his decision to pursue a career in law back to the 1992 riots that erupted in Los Angeles after four white police officers were acquitted in the beating of Rodney King, a Black man.
“It crystallized the fact that we still had a long way to go to eradicate social and racial injustice,” he said.
Jeffries went on to work as a corporate lawyer before entering politics, losing two runs for the New York State Assembly before winning a seat in 2006 and eventually being elected to Congress six years later.
In Washington, he helped broker a bipartisan criminal justice reform law signed by Trump in 2018. Two years later, during Trump’s first impeachment trial, he argued that Trump should be removed from office as one of seven House impeachment managers who presented the case to the US Senate.
Rising quickly through the Democratic ranks, Jeffries became caucus chair in 2019 before making history three years later, when he was unanimously chosen to succeed former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as the party’s House leader, becoming the first Black politician to lead a party in either chamber of Congress.
Can Jeffries unite his party?
Jeffries and Pelosi have been compared for their distinct leadership styles. While Pelosi was known for her commanding, top-down approach, Jeffries has built a reputation for quietly and deliberately building consensus among his colleagues.
That approach has frustrated some Democrats, who say Jeffries has been too reluctant to take firm positions and who question whether he is prepared to confront Trump and Republicans in Congress aggressively enough.
Those concerns were on display after Jeffries declared after the election that “the American people don’t want us to get even; they want us to get things done on their behalf.”
Among those who pushed back was left-wing political commentator Hasan Piker, who reposted a video of Jeffries’s comments, saying: “No, we definitely ARE looking for justice and accountability.”
Jeffries also faced criticism after reports emerged in August that he had privately met Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who does not have a formal role in the administration but has been involved in diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and in Russia.
Jeffries defended the meeting, saying Kushner had requested it and that he had used it to discuss the affordability crisis. But critics argued that rather than meeting privately with Kushner, Jeffries should have been preparing to investigate his business dealings.
Ahead of the election, Axios reported on a plan by some incoming progressive lawmakers – informally known as “The Bloc” and including Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier of New York and Melat Kiros of Colorado – to use the upcoming speaker vote to win concessions from Jeffries on issues such as Medicare for All, cutting funding for ICE, and weapons shipments to Israel.
That may be harder now that the Democrats have a comfortable majority, with Jeffries less dependent on progressive newcomers to secure the speakership. But the result also makes it harder for Jeffries to argue, as he has in the past, that Republican control of Congress is hindering the Democrats’ ability to advance their agenda and hold Trump accountable.
Jeffries’s Israel stance divides Democrats
Of all the sources of tension between Jeffries and his party’s progressive wing, the hardest divide to bridge may be over his longstanding support for Israel and ties to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
At a conference hosted by the group in 2020, Jeffries opposed putting conditions on US aid to Israel and described Jerusalem as New York City’s “sixth borough”.
He has also been one of the top recipients of financial support from AIPAC and its network of donors, earning the nickname “AIPAC Shakur” from New York radio host Charlamagne tha God.
In a celebratory post after the elections congratulating the candidates it had supported, AIPAC singled out Jeffries and Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer by name.
But Jeffries’s steadfast support for Israel throughout its genocidal war on Gaza has put him increasingly at odds with his own party, and he recently signalled that his position may be changing.
In July, even as he voted against an amendment that would have cut $3.3bn in annual military aid to Israel, he acknowledged the need for a reset in US-Israel relations.
“A meaningful change in direction is needed,” he wrote in a letter to colleagues.
Jeffries appears to have the speakership all but secured, with no serious challenger emerging so far.
However, with Trump still in the White House, a party grappling with its own divisions, and voters expecting change on everything from the cost of living to the war on Iran, the bigger test for Jeffries will come once he is on the job.