US Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, whose upbringing in Brooklyn’s Cornerstone Baptist Church helped him easily slide from hard-edged political talking points to Biblical passages, proved doubters wrong Tuesday as he led a midterm Democratic blue wave that looked set to flip the House of Representatives and position him as the first Black Speaker.
The 56-year-old Jeffries, who is known to mix quotes from Scripture with rhymes from Brooklyn rappers Jay-Z and the Notorious B.I.G., was already discarding most traditional signs of caution as polls and early returns suggested an increasingly likely path to a Democratic win Tuesday.
“We’re on the verge of taking back control of the House,” Jeffries said after a recent campaign appearance. “We will be part of bringing about a better chapter in the United States of America. That’s the mission. And failure is not an option.”
Several networks had called the House for the Democrats late Tuesday evening with final numbers still being tallied across the nation.
Jeffries made history last year by delivering a marathon speech to delay passage of US President Donald Trump’s so-called One Big Beautiful bill that he decried for its draconian cuts to healthcare and the social safety net.
And he projected trademark optimism that voters would make Trump and his Republican allies pay at the ballot box, a prediction that appears to have borne out Tuesday.
“Weeping may endure for a night,” he told his colleagues, some of whom interrupted him like they were in a black church. “But joy comes in the morning.”
If Jeffries wins the speaker’s gavel, it could further cement Brooklyn’s status as a center of the political universe. He lives about a mile from the Park Slope home of Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is poised to take over as Senate majority leader if the Democrats grab control of the upper Chamber.
Becoming speaker would cap a remarkable political rise for Jeffries.
The son of a social worker and substance abuse counselor, Jeffries married a social worker like his mom, with whom he shares two children. Three of Jeffries’ grandparents were black Americans from the South while his maternal grandfather was the son of immigrants from the Portuguese-speaking African island nation of Cape Verde.
His uncle is Leonard Jeffries, a retired CUNY political science professor and a well-known black nationalist activist.
A graduate of Midwood High School, Jeffries earned a political science degree at the State University of New York at Binghamton and a master’s in public policy at Georgetown before graduating magna cum laude at New York University School of Law.
At 29, the budding corporate lawyer made his first run for office, seeking to oust longtime Assemblyman Roger L. Green from a Fort Greene district, portraying himself as a youthful force for change. He lost twice and only won the seat after Green left to run for Congress.
After a few years in Albany, he ran for Congress in 2012, winning after veteran ex-Rep. Ed Towns decided to step down.
An adept negotiator
In Washington, Jeffries proved to be adept at negotiating the internal politics of the House Democratic caucus, which is divided into competing factions by race, ideology, region, age, and temperament, among other divisions.
Jeffries appears to place himself in a long tradition of moderate Democratic elected officials, many of whom have learned the value of building power and alliances deliberately. He’s a strong supporter of Israel, earning him the distrust of some on the left critical of the war in Gaza.
He scored the daunting step of replacing Rep. Nancy Pelosi as the Democratic caucus leader when she chose to step down from the role after Republicans won the House in the 2022 midterm elections.
Many were skeptical that Jeffries could fill the shoes of Pelosi, who famously tamed the once-fractious caucus with an iron fist both as minority leader and as the first female Speaker of the House. The doubters grew even louder when Jeffries and Schumer were tasked with seeking to rein in a resurgent Trump when he won a return to the White House in 2024.
Critics said Jeffries was too moderate. Too pro-Israel. Too quick to negotiate. Too focused on process instead of the energy driving progressive protests on the streets. But Jeffries focused on counting the votes, just like Pelosi before him.
In Trump’s second term, Democrats under Jeffries leadership used all the tools available to force votes that GOP leadership tried to avoid - on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files and halting the Iran war.
They voted against the GOP’s big tax breaks and spending cuts bill, Jeffries delivering an eight-hour speech spotlighting cuts to Medicaid healthcare and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The Trump opening
As the first years of Trump’s second stint in the White House wore on, the president’s approval ratings steadily tracked downward, helping give Democratic donors and lawmakers confidence they could retake the House in 2026.
Jeffries has at times battled progressives over various issues, including his penchant for endorsing moderate incumbents in the face of primary challenges.
He was very slow to back Zohran Mamdani’s 2025 bid for mayor even after Mamdani won the Democratic primary. This summer, he backed incumbents Rep. Dan Goldman and Rep. Adriano Espaillat over progressive insurgent rivals.
Still, Jeffries successfully enlisted Mamdani to help kill a planned effort by Councilman Chi Osse to primary Jeffries in his own NY-08 district. His political team signaled that he was ready for a scorched-earth race against youthful progressive rivals he derides as “Team Gentrification.”
Even if Democrats win a majority, Jeffries would still need to win the support of a majority of House lawmakers, or nearly all the Democrats, to win the gavel in January.
That will likely force him to overcome some potential opposition from progressive incoming lawmakers like Mamdani’s Democratic Socialists of America allies Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez.