PALMDALE, Calif. (AP) — This election, he has warned, is about the economy. Freedom. Project 2025 and the MAGA extremes stop.
And after the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, it is about democracy.
And yet Hakeem Jeffries, who is about to make history as the first Black speaker of the House of Representatives, says he is choosing to remain calm as Democrats work to wrest control of the chaotic U.S. House from Republicans .
“In this unprecedented moment that we are in, I have come to the conclusion that calm is an intentional decision,” Jeffries told The Associated Press during an interview at a parkside cafe between campaign stops in Southern California.
“We have to continue to make the decision to stay calm, execute the plan, run through the finish line,” he said. “And then put it in the hands of the American people.”
The campaign for control of the House of Representatives has always been a tight battle, playing out in unlikely corners of the country far from the presidential race, including in Jeffries’ home state of New York and in California. A single contested seat, among 435, could make the difference if Democrats can flip the majority and oust Republican Mike Johnson from the speaker’s office.
Never before in the country’s nearly 250-year history has a black American been so close to seizing the gavel. Jeffries, 54, is part of a younger generation of leaders, alongside Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, who are proposing a new path forward beyond the era of former president Republican Donald Trump.
But Jeffries, a lawyer before coming to Congress, doesn’t want to talk about the milestone of becoming speaker of the House of Representatives, and he’s hesitant to predict that Democrats will win the House majority. He now wants to talk to voters about the choices.
“Everything we care about is at stake. Everything we care about is at stake. We can move this country forward or turn back the clock,” he said early Sunday morning in the high desert community of Palmdale, the dusty far reaches of Los Angeles County.
“We’re not going back!” sang the hundreds of volunteers, ready to knock on doors to vote for Democrat George Whitesides in the race against Republican Rep. Mike Garcia.
Brooklyn-born Jeffries took over as leader of the House of Representatives when Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi stepped aside, making him heir apparent to the speaker’s office. He is poised to win the internal party elections as leader again later this year, regardless of the election results. But if Democrats gain the majority, he would run to become speaker of the entire House when the new Congress convenes in January.
Jeffries’ freeform speeches in the House of Representatives are among the party’s most effective communicators, standing out among the modern rhetoric and cultural references of the time. He is sometimes compared to former President Barack Obama.
Now the congressman’s skills and knowledge are being put to the test as he travels the country and raises funds for the party.
He is open and accessible to colleagues, methodical and even meditative, although sometimes slow to act, and keeps a very close eye on his counsel. He appears to have told almost no one what he said to President Joe Biden when the two spoke privately during a tumultuous July before the president announced his decision to withdraw from the race and endorse Harris.
“A rock,” said Rep. Grace Meng, a fellow New York Democrat who has looked to Jeffries as a mentor. “He takes everyone seriously.”
Traveling 25,000 miles and visiting more than 30 states to flip the House of Representatives, Jeffries is proposing a “robust” Democratic agenda, which he described as lowering the costs of inflation, creating better jobs and safer communities , and addressing the affordable housing crisis.
The House of Representatives would vote among Democrats to enshrine access to reproductive care in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision that ended abortion rights in Roe v. Wade, he said. And it would pass the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Act to expand and protect access to ballots.
As he campaigned through California, Jeffries spent Saturday afternoon rallying voters in a party room in Orange County’s Little Saigon, near Disneyland, in one of the most contested seats of the cycle.
On Sunday he was at one of the older black churches in the Lancaster area, in what residents said was a segregated part of town. He urged the congregation to gather family and friends and “vote for enlightened leadership, people who have your best interests at heart, who want to work together.”
In many ways, Jeffries has already acted as the de facto speaker of the House of Representatives, the leader who could be relied on after Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy from the speaker’s office and plunged the House into chaos.
It was Jeffries who provided the Democratic votes to ensure that Congress passed key legislation, including to prevent a government shutdown and to arm Ukraine in the fight against Russia, while Johnson could not sustain his own Republican majority check.
And it was Jeffries who saved Johnson’s job as chairman, once again delivering the Democratic votes needed to reverse far-right Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene’s attempt to oust him.
Asked what kind of speaker he would be if Democrats win, Jeffries said he has already shown that.
“Putting people above politics is not just a slogan,” he said of the party’s message. “It has been a reigning way of life.”
Rep. Jim Clyburn of South Carolina, once the highest-ranking Black leader as the House Democratic whip, said Jeffries’ ascension to chairman would show the nation’s path “toward a more perfect union.”
“Those are all stepping stones,” he said. “And you keep going until you make a breakthrough. And I think we have a chance here to make the breakthrough.”
As families played in a nearby park, Claudette Reynolds, a retired postal worker, saw Jeffries walk into the Orange County cafe.
She rushed over to take a selfie and later shared their conversation.
“I told him we will make him the next Speaker of the House of Representatives,” she said.
