The left wing of the Democratic Party flourished this summer as fed-up liberals in key races across the country have eschewed traditional, more moderate candidates in favor of hard-charging progressives. But behind the scenes, ultra-progressive House members and candidates are pushing their own party leaders to reflect more of that mood — arguing that Democratic … The post Democrats might win in the midterms — but a whole new set of problems await appeared first on Egypt Independent .
The left wing of the Democratic Party flourished this summer as fed-up liberals in key races across the country have eschewed traditional, more moderate candidates in favor of hard-charging progressives.
But behind the scenes, ultra-progressive House members and candidates are pushing their own party leaders to reflect more of that mood — arguing that Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries and his allies are, so far, failing to grasp the demands of far-left voters who showed up in droves this summer.
Those liberals watched in alarm in recent weeks as Jeffries publicly disavowed their marquee “Medicare for All” bill while a pro-Israel Democrat was elevated to a key foreign policy role within the caucus. They also argue his allies were working to undermine a pair of progressive candidates in Michigan and California.
“I was very confused and surprised by that,” Rep. Pramila Jayapal, a senior progressive and author of the House’s “Medicare for All” bill, told CNN about the leader’s comments about her signature bill. She added that she has been having “direct” conversations with Jeffries about it.
The emerging frustrations on the left offer a preview of some of the pressures that await Jeffries if the party can flip the chamber next year, particularly as a new crop of far-left progressive candidates threaten not to support him for leader post-election.
“I think what we’ve seen around the country is that people all over are dissatisfied. They’re not happy with the administration. They’re not happy with the current leadership in the Democratic Party — and are looking for a change,” Dr. Adam Hamawy, a progressive candidate who is likely to win a deep blue seat in New Jersey this November, told CNN. Hamawy is among several candidates fresh off primary victories who have not decided whether to back Jeffries.
“Most Democrats, I think, agree that the current leadership is failing to face the moment,” Hamawy told CNN when asked if he’ll support Jeffries. “I have to see what the choices are and what the situation is.”
Adam Hamawy speaks during an AFP interview in Washington DC, in June 2024.
Drew Angerer/AFP/Getty Images
Tensions have long simmered within the Democratic Party, including in its fractious House caucus, where many centrists are privately pleased with what they see as Jeffries’ effort to distance the party from a far-left agenda ahead of a critical election. But the rise of the democratic-socialist wing of the party has drawn new urgency to a major question now facing Jeffries: How much should the party embrace its insurgent left when it’s also trying to win dozens of seats in GOP turf in November?
Nearly all progressives who spoke to CNN said Jeffries is still on track to become speaker next January if Democrats flip the chamber, according to conversations with more than a dozen Democrats. Privately, Jeffries has already met or made plans to meet with five of those insurgent Democrats: Hamawy in New Jersey, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier in New York, and Melat Kiros in Colorado, according to people familiar with the discussions.
Still, the recent frustrations on the left illustrate the challenge for Jeffries and his leadership team as they navigate the anti-establishment midterm mood within their party. The dissatisfaction goes beyond the upper echelons of leadership: there are preliminary internal discussions among current progressive members about challenging committee leaders and, possibly, instituting term limits for key roles, multiple people told CNN.
“Defeating 10, 30-year incumbents should be a wake-up call to the Democratic establishment that the base is moving underneath them,” Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for a group helping to power the far-left wins, Justice Democrats, told CNN. (This cycle, nine of the group’s endorsed candidates won primaries, its biggest year to date.)
Andrabi specifically pointed to Jeffries’ comments on “Medicare for All” – in which Jeffries recently said he did not support the legislation**:** “Unfortunately, it often feels that the Democratic leadership and establishment don’t even want to acknowledge the ground is moving.”
Progressives, including Hamawy and Avila Chevalier, made clear in interviews with CNN they are coming to Washington to make real progress on an ambitious agenda on affordability and anti-corruption — not to simply antagonize leadership.
“We’re not really going in to fight, we’re going in to deliver on what people want,” Hamawy said.
Yet even Jeffries’ allies acknowledge the challenge awaiting him in January: navigating an intraparty battle over the party’s ideological future. While an emboldened left wing is pushing for a major shake-up in Congress, Jeffries could also face an expanded centrist bloc that humiliated leadership last week when some of its members showed they were willing to defy the party line on key priorities — even if it meant helping Republicans.
That centrist rebellion has since triggered a messy internal feud among House Democrats. Privately, Jeffries and his team are discussing ways to crack down on any of their members voting for procedural motions that hurt the party – a proposal that has infuriated the left and centrists alike, according to Democrats from both factions.
A tense debate has since unfolded over whether party leaders should create new rules for next year to punish members who defy leadership. In a closed-door meeting on Wednesday about leadership’s push, Progressive Caucus Chair Greg Casar of Texas pushed back firmly, arguing that members need to be able to voice dissent, according to multiple people familiar with the discussions. But he was immediately confronted by others, including Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, who argued Democrats shouldn’t be willing to go rogue on the floor.
Those dynamics will be on full display starting with the speaker’s vote in January, if Democrats win the majority.
Avila Chevalier, a community organizer who shook New York City politics by unseating a long-time incumbent this summer, told CNN that she recently had a “positive” conversation with Jeffries.
But she said she hasn’t “come to any final decisions on that yet,” when asked whether she would support Jeffries as party leader, adding: “It’ll be the first vote I make. It’ll set the tone for the kind of representative that my district will have, and I want that vote to mean something to my community.”
Darializa Avila Chevalier stands for a portrait at Marcus Garvey Park in the Harlem neighborhood of New York on August 12.
Marco Postigo Storel/CNN
Even if many of the far-left incoming Democrats ultimately do support Jeffries, it’s to their advantage not to show their cards just yet – creating what could be powerful leverage to negotiate for their priorities when they first arrive in Congress.
Asked more broadly about her agenda for next year, Avila Chevalier offered a range of “day one” priorities such as ending the sale of weapons to Israel, the Green New Deal for Public Housing and abolishing super PACs – as well as other ideas that are widely backed by the party like universal childcare and raising the minimum wage.
“It’s time that folks who are in DC or elsewhere who might be comfortable with the status quo to recognize that the vast majority of the people of this country are hungry for something different,” she said.
Many liberal Democrats are careful not to openly criticize their own leadership just ahead of a must-win midterm election.
But privately, progressive members and candidates remain concerned by Jeffries’ comments publicly disavowing “Medicare for All” and saying he does not support the Democratic Socialists of America agenda in an interview last month with NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
Asked if he supports the bill, Jeffries said: “No, as you indicated, I haven’t cosponsored the ‘Medicare for All’ legislation that has been introduced over the last several years,” adding: “I do think we need to figure out how to fix our broken health care system and then build something better.”
Jeffries’ allies said his comments also reflect one of his long-time beliefs — that House leaders should not support major bills until there’s broad support in the caucus.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries speaks during a press conference in the US Capitol on September 3.
Finn Gomez/Getty Images
Other progressives are concerned that party leaders are not adequately responding to the movement’s vocal pro-Palestine push. They are, in particular, concerned about the recent elevation of prominent Israel supporter, Rep. Jared Moskowitz of Florida, to a Foreign Affairs subcommittee post that could give him influence over foreign policy next year.
Multiple Democrats told CNN that Jeffries was not involved in the move – saying instead that it was arranged by Rep. Brad Sherman, another Israel ally, who inherited the role after a colleague’s resignation. Moskowitz, who’s facing a tough reelection, asked Sherman if he could have the spot on the panel to help him with pro-Israel voters back home, those people said.
Rep. Gregory Meeks, the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee, dismissed the left’s criticism, calling the hand-off “standard committee procedure.” He added that Moskowitz had already held an important role on the committee – the top Democrat on the oversight subcommittee, which has since been passed off to Rep. Jonathan Jackson of Illinois.
“I don’t know what the left’s problem is,” Meeks said, adding that he believes his committee is “very balanced” on the issue of Israel.
Still, the rise of Moskowitz has emerged as a major flashpoint among progressive lawmakers and candidates, especially after Jeffries had appealed to the left earlier this year by declaring that “American policy in the Middle East must change” after he opposed cutting taxpayer aid to Israel during a landmark vote earlier this year.
Then there are party leaders’ recent moves on the campaign trail.
In California, progressives are furious that their state’s delegation leader, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, tried to tank a left-wing candidate in a bitter fight to fill the seat of former Rep. Eric Swalwell.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren arrives for a Democratic caucus meeting on September 1.
Andrew Harnik/Getty Images
Progressive candidate, state Sen. Aisha Wahab, won the state party’s endorsement and secured the most votes in two separate primaries for the seat (including a special election) – though she failed to top the 50 percent needed to avoid a runoff.
Ahead of that August 18 runoff, Lofgren, a leadership ally, released a video statement questioning Wahab’s fitness to serve in Congress and instead endorsed a more moderate candidate for the upcoming runoff.
The drama began after Lofgren and others, including No. 3 House Democrat Rep. Pete Aguilar, argued that California Democrats needed to fill the seat as quickly as possible and should install a “placeholder” Democrat to the seat temporarily.
But progressives argued Lofgren was simply trying to keep Wahab out of the role, giving the more moderate — and AIPAC-backed — candidate a better chance of winning a full term for the seat in November. (A person familiar with the subject said the congresswoman wasn’t opposing her due to her progressive policy stands, but rather because of Wahab’s refusal to back the push to install a “placeholder” Democrat to the seat through January.)
Wahab still won and was sworn into the House last week. But the cost, progressives say, was millions of dollars in spending in the election that could have gone toward defeating Republicans.
Rep. Aisha Wahab speaks with Speaker of the House Mike Johnson just after she was sworn in, at the US Capitol on September 2.
J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Wahab has since spoken with both Lofgren and Aguilar and they congratulated her on her win, she told KCRA 3 News. But one of Wahab’s most vocal supporters, Amar Shergill, a prominent progressive activist in California, told CNN that he still blames party leaders for allowing such a “shocking” intervention against the candidate endorsed by the state party.
“I’ve never seen anything like it, it was unprecedented,” Shergill said. “Lofgren leads the largest congressional delegation in the country. When she makes moves behind the scenes, everybody hears about it. It’s impossible for DC leadership not to know what she’s doing.”
“It was a tough primary but we’re looking forward to everyone coalescing around her and putting the primary behind us,” said Evan Brown, executive director of the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.
Meanwhile, in Michigan, progressives are fuming that the House Democrats’ campaign arm has refused to publicly promote left-wing Democrat, Will Lawrence, roughly a month after he won a nasty three-way primary there.
At issue: The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has so far declined to add Lawrence to a coveted list of their priority House candidates, in part out of deference to leaders of the Congressional Black Caucus, multiple people involved in discussions about the issue told CNN.
The CBC has yet to endorse Lawrence after their public battle with him during the primary over his 2024 comments criticizing Black political leaders. Lawrence, a White climate activist who recently let his DSA membership lapse, came under fire from senior Black Democrats, including Jeffries and Meeks for saying Black political leaders “defang the White left.”
Lawrence, in previous interviews with CNN, has apologized for his “choice of words” in that statement. And some House progressives are “absolutely apoplectic” that party leaders have not yet backed him, according to one of those people.
US House candidate William Lawrence speaks at a rally with US Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, Sen. Bernie Sanders and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in Lansing, Michigan, on July 19.
Andrew Roth/Sipa USA/AP
“We’re working on a path forward when it comes to being able to support him,” a Black Caucus strategist with knowledge of the situation told CNN.
The list, run by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, is effectively seen as a “stamp of approval” from party leaders — a flashing sign for party groups and donors to put their support behind the strongest candidates. Lawrence’s absence, progressives say, is depriving him of a big fundraising boost to help defeat GOP Rep. Tom Barrett.
The flare-up in Michigan comes after party leaders did get behind a slew of other progressive candidates in key races – including some who defeated party-preferred candidates – such as Randy Villegas in a pivotal California swing seat.
The DCCC and Lawrence’s campaign declined to comment. But one person familiar with the inner-workings of the DCCC told CNN that the group has been “working every day” with Lawrence’s team to defeat Barrett in November.
Meeks, who runs the Black Caucus’s PAC, said he’s had “good conversations” with Lawrence over the phone and is looking forward to sitting down with him in Washington soon.
“We’ll talk. I think we’re going to get that resolved,” he said. “If you look at him, compared to who he’s running against, we want him to win.”
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