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Hakeem Jeffries is three seats away from the House majority. First, though, he must face a problem that’s familiar to his Senate Democratic colleagues: He has no clear plan to answer activists clamoring for more anti-Trump fight.
Jeffries confronted that pushback during a stop on his book tour last week, just as Republicans started to field public frustration with the layoffs and cuts imposed by President Donald Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency. And after local progressive protesters disrupted Jeffries during that Chicago appearance, several House Democratic staffers privately grumbled to Semafor that the leader should be more hands-on.
Asked if Jeffries is feeling heat from the left, former Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., responded that “oh, I think so.”
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, has drawn his fair share of progressive fury since becoming Democratic leader across the Capitol. But his fellow New Yorker Jeffries is experiencing the first taste of life as a caucus leader under Trump — whose pugnacious style tends to provoke calls for all-out rhetorical combat from the left.
Still, many Democrats defend him, even to the point of hitting the party’s base for being counterproductive. Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., a former top leader himself, likened progressives’ recent outcry to the “defund the police” messaging that damaged the Democratic brand back in 2020.
“That’s the way they do it,” Clyburn said of activists. “They don’t focus on the problem.”
A spokesperson for the House minority leader did not address the progressive protests against Jeffries, but pointed to the constituents who last week peppered Republicans with tough questions about DOGE.
During Trump’s first term, Democrats quickly embraced a sprawling network of anti-Trump groups who tormented Republican incumbents and the attorneys who slowed his administration down in court. Jeffries’ and Schumer’s members have revived the latter part of that strategy, even if they’ve more frequently protested alongside federal workers than outwardly progressive activists.
But the party is far less popular than it was eight years ago, even with its own base. Polling this month from Quinnipiac University found just 40% of self-identified Democrats approving of the job their party was doing in Congress, alongside 19% of independents. (Forty percent of independents, and 79% of Republicans, approved of how the GOP was doing.)
“Well, the polling numbers always take a while to come through,” Jayapal said of the 21% overall approval of Democrats. “People want to see Democrats fighting, and I think we are showing what it looks like to fight back.”
They haven’t been helped by a more splintered media environment that can mischaracterize moments when top Democrats address their approach to combating Trump. One recent example: After Jeffries pointed out that Trump’s party controls all of Congress and the White House, meaning Republicans have sole ownership over big decisions like funding the government, progressives mocked him for asking, “What leverage do we have?”
“Do you agree that the Democratic Party has no leverage?” Zeteo founder Mehdi Hasan asked Rep. Ilhan Omar, playing the clip for the Minnesota Democrat during a live appearance.
Omar defended Jeffries, crediting him with shaping a “blueprint” for fighting back.
On Monday, the progressive group Justice Democrats, which helped elect Omar, shared a story about donations to the House Democratic campaign arm from a lobbying firm with ties to Elon Musk as evidence that Jeffries had given up his “leverage.”
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For quite a few House Democrats, the tension is beyond unhelpful.
“We’ve got to stop the circular firing squad,” Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Mich., told Semafor.
But for the progressive activists who showed up at Jeffries’ event, it was a question of priorities.
“For many people, it was difficult to reconcile the crisis people thought we were in and a calm discussion of a book,” said Kathy Tholin, co-chair of the Indivisible Chicago Alliance, which sent around 100 people to show up outside Jeffries’ event last Wednesday. (Inside, Jeffries was repeatedly interrupted by the left-wing group Climate Defiance, which accused him of picking “donors over voters.”)
“There were a lot of folks who saw this event and thought the optics were questionable,” the 69-year-old Tholin added. “Maybe we should be organizing right now, not holding a book tour.”
Some House Democratic aides privately agree with her. One of them called it “tone-deaf” of Jeffries to hold a book event while Trump asserts sweeping executive power, sidestepping Congress to cancel contracts and dismantle agencies he sees as wasteful.
The View From Chris Murphy
Not all of Jeffries’ fellow Democratic lawmakers think the party’s left flank should stand down. After a rally at the Capitol against the GOP’s still-forthcoming tax bill, Connecticut Sen. Chis Murphy said he doesn’t worry about activists pressing lawmakers to do more.
“People should hold us accountable,” Murphy told Semafor. “People should demand that we are really loud in the face of the seizure of our government by the billionaire class.”
Kadia and David’s View
House Democrats have more than 18 months before the midterms to convince voters they deserve the majority — and with it, the opportunity to serve as a check on Trump.
But as they develop that message, they may encounter more progressive pressure than Senate Democrats, who have both a tougher 2026 map and the legislative filibuster at their disposal. Jeffries is experiencing especially pointed pushback in part because he is a newbie to his role; the iconic status that former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi attained in many corners of the left may be inviting subtle comparisons between the two.
“You got to strike out on somebody,” Rep. Gerry Connolly, D-Va., told Semafor. “You got to hold somebody to account. And so I don’t judge them for that, but I absolutely think he’s doing his job and doing it well.”
Notable
- On CNN, Jake Tapper quizzed Jeffries about his leadership and his critics; the Democratic leader questioned some of the premises, pointing out that the president’s poll numbers had declined since the inauguration.
- Some Democrats outside Congress haven’t been impressed with the party’s fight, the New York Times reported: “They are failing to address the real concerns that people have,” said Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro.
- “Hakeem Jeffries Needs To Get It Together,” the headline on one Bloomberg opinion columnist’s piece last week read.