House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries has formally launched his campaign to become speaker of the House, the clearest sign yet that Democrats are moving to organize their new majority after last week's midterm elections handed them control of the chamber for the first time since 2022.
Democratic House leadership elections are scheduled for November 18, when the caucus will meet behind closed doors to select its nominees for speaker and other top posts. Jeffries would still need 218 votes on the House floor in January to be formally elected speaker, replacing outgoing Republican Speaker Mike Johnson, but his position atop the Democratic caucus makes him the overwhelming favorite for the nomination.
A narrow but real majority
Democrats flipped the House from a 218-214 Republican edge, according to projections from multiple outlets, while also retaking the Senate — though the exact final seat count was still being finalized in several close races as of this weekend. The gains came in a midterm cycle that saw Democrats also win a string of governorships, including in races where Republican candidates had campaigned heavily on curbing new data-center construction, a flashpoint that rattled AI-related stocks the following week.
Jeffries, who has led the House Democratic caucus since 2023, has said his priorities include reversing Republican-passed tax and spending measures and launching oversight investigations of the Trump administration, though he has offered few specifics ahead of the leadership vote.
What comes next
The transition will not be immediate: Republicans retain control of the House and its committees until the new Congress is sworn in in January, meaning any Democratic legislative agenda will not advance until the new year at the earliest. In the meantime, both parties are expected to spend the coming weeks sorting out committee assignments and leadership posts, with Senate Republicans also facing questions about how to respond to their loss of the majority.
Republican reaction to the midterm losses has been mixed, with some party strategists publicly questioning the current political strategy heading into the 2028 presidential cycle, while the White House has downplayed the results as typical midterm headwinds for a sitting president's party.
