The last two weeks have been hard on House Democrats. They saw their poll numbers flagging. They faced fears of losing the Senate and failing to win back the House. They argued with each other, sometimes along racial lines. And their former leader, Nancy Pelosi, eclipsed their current leaders and got most of the credit — or blame — for pushing Joe Biden aside.
Somehow, it’s all worked out well for Hakeem Jeffries.
With “Democrats in disarray” storylines swirling around him, the House minority leader held his cards close, refusing to tip his hand about his preferred path forward for the Biden campaign. He left his public statements in the eye of the beholder, insisting that the Biden-Harris campaign could win but demurring when pressed if the president was best suited to lead the ticket. He met with Biden in private but refused — and refuses — to offer details on what they discussed.
Jeffries’ supporters say the measured silence was no accident. “His mantra is that calm is a choice, and he chooses calm,” top House Oversight Democrat Jamie Raskin told NOTUS.
Rep. Dan Kildee, a top Jeffries confidant, insisted that he was a player in the Biden saga alongside Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. But Jeffries’ forte, Kildee said, is keeping a low profile while he reads the room.
“He’s giving us the space to do the things that we think are the right thing to do,” Kildee said, “knowing that his voice has so much weight that it’s smart — to use a carpenter’s term — measure twice and cut once.”
The result, Kildee said: “You don’t see a lot of anxiety or tension within the Democratic caucus, even over this right now, even during those last few weeks when there could have been some tempers that would flare from time to time.”
Democratic enthusiasm for their leader may say a lot about the party’s overwhelming desire to put the slow-motion train wreck of the last few weeks behind them. Still, Jeffries’ careful operating style kept a fractured caucus with him, even as Pelosi — his predecessor and mentor — engaged in more public maneuvering.
“He doesn’t speak too slowly, but he does speak slowly,” Rep. Don Beyer told NOTUS. “It’s almost like a poet. He lets you fill in those blank spaces with your own thoughts. Also gives you time to catch up with what he’s trying to tell you.”
Absent a clear public position, Jeffries sat back as a drip-drip-drip of House Democrats — including members of his leadership team — urged Biden to withdraw. He left the door open when Pelosi said Biden hadn’t made his “decision” despite the president insisting he was dead set on running for reelection. He told reporters he wouldn’t take a public stance until he’d attempted to consult every member of his caucus.
Quietly, Jeffries worked with House Democrats attempting to delay a July Democratic National Committee roll call vote which would have certified Biden as the party’s nominee. The leader of that effort, Rep. Jared Huffman, told NOTUS that Jeffries was “incredibly helpful.”
“I appreciated being able to check in with him, being able, I think, to work in a complementary way,” Huffman told NOTUS.
In the meantime, there’s no question Pelosi’s fingerprints were all over the pressure campaign against Biden. A fellow veteran statesman — who herself has relinquished power — Pelosi was well positioned to communicate directly with Biden. Pelosi regularly fielded calls from House Democrats seeking advice — from her old leadership team to vulnerable rank-and-file frontliners — according to NBC News. Some of the most prominent Democrats to call for Biden’s resignation included California Reps. Zoe Lofgren, Adam Schiff and Huffman.
Though Pelosi carries all the clout of a former speaker, she no longer bears responsibility for her caucus, which allowed her more room than Jeffries to take a public-facing role.
Several Democrats privately acknowledged that they were primarily taking their cues from Pelosi, not Jeffries, opening the door for more of them to say Biden should drop out.
“We’re always taking cues from Nancy Pelosi, but she’s often not easily interpretable,” Beyer said.
“She gives hints,” he added, “but then when she wants to say something, she says it very clearly. But along the way, she’s leaving herself and she’s leaving us a lot of room.“
“In this instance, Nancy was being Nancy, fully engaged, but also being respectful,” longtime California Rep. Mark DeSaulnier — whose Bay Area district neighbors Pelosi’s — told NOTUS.
“Pelosi really is a model of someone who was a spectacular and unmatched success in politics and decided to step out of leadership but remains to be a coach and adviser and a player,” Raskin said.
Even as Jeffries’ leadership team circled around Kamala Harris, the leader himself stopped short of issuing a full endorsement Monday, merely teasing his forthcoming support during a press conference. That quiet was yet again intentional rather than indecisive, sources close to Jeffries said, and gave the party time to coalesce around Harris without top leaders’ public say-so.
By Tuesday — when Harris had won enough delegates to be the party’s nominee — Jeffries and Schumer endorsed the vice president at a joint press conference.
“Vice President Harris will beat Donald Trump and become the next president of the United States of America,” the leader beamed.
Jeffries is now poised to be a major Harris booster as the members of his caucus hope that her candidacy will boost theirs. Jeffries’ younger brother, Hasan Kwame Jeffries, wrote on X Monday that Jeffries’ wife and mother are members of the same sorority as Harris and that, like her, several of his family members went to historically Black colleges and universities.
“Trust,” the younger Jeffries said, “he understands the assignment.”
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Riley Rogerson is a reporter at NOTUS.