Hakeem Jeffries bounded onto a Washington stage Tuesday night, carrying himself like a leader who had just been crowned.
“America is back,” declared the incoming House Speaker as fellow Brooklyn native Biggie Smalls played for the crowd. Jeffries described the midterms as “a change election” and said voters had delivered a clear message: “Enough of the extremism.”
By the time lawmakers return on January 3, however, some members of his own party may be pushing in a very different direction.
Across the country, voters elected a wave of local, state and federal officials who represent a more left-wing Democratic Party than ever before.
Jeffries’s caucus now includes at least eight members of the Democratic Socialists of America, up from two in the previous term. Among them is a lawmaker who once called for “a world without prisons or police” and urged the United States to “literally, abolish the border.”
In the Senate, fellow Brooklynite Chuck Schumer—the incoming majority leader—will have to work with Abdul El-Sayed, arguably one of the most left-wing senators ever elected. Schumer also came close to having a full DSA member in the chamber after Angie Nixon narrowly lost her Florida Senate race.
For Ashik Siddique, the development is cause for celebration.
Siddique, co-chair of the DSA’s national political committee, told Our News Outlet that Tuesday’s results marked only the start of the organization’s political ambitions. He highlighted the victory of his “rainbow-headed” ally Ashley Herrmann, 38, who flipped a Republican-held state Senate seat near Tampa, Florida.
Hakeem Jeffries bounded onto a Washington stage Tuesday night, carrying himself like a leader who had just been crowned
Ashik Siddique, co-chair of the DSA’s national political committee, is pictured with Zohran Mamdani
Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer will have to work with Abdul El-Sayed
“These results are not a flash in the pan,” Siddique said, pointing out that DSA membership has grown from 6,000 in 2016 to 130,000 today. “Democratic Socialists of America are building an enduring organization that can lead an enduring movement.”
“We’re now seeing DSA candidates win re-election to second or third terms across the country. We ran more candidates in this cycle than ever before. I think there were at least 200 candidates at many levels of government, from local office all the way to Congress. We’re helping lead the conversation and shift public opinion on a broad range of issues.”
Siddique said the DSA was steadily moving the political debate to the left, noting that even Donald Trump was discussing an end to military aid for Israel on the eve of the election.
“Nobody thought 10 years ago that abolishing ICE was a popular sentiment when we were saying it, but now it has popular support,” he said. “When we said ‘Free Palestine,’ that was not popular among Americans 10 years ago. Now it is, and majorities of Americans across parties support a full arms embargo against Israel.”
According to Siddique, DSA candidates campaigned on affordable housing, Medicare for All, universal childcare, moratoriums on AI data centers and abolishing ICE.
“These are very popular ideas,” he added. “When you look at the issues our candidates ran on, it’s clear we’ve been shaping the conversation and the broader direction of the political left.”
What happens when the new lawmakers arrive in Washington in January and confront the Democratic establishment? Could the party be headed for an internal war?
Siddique responded with a chuckle.
The tension between the party’s traditional leadership and its newly empowered left wing, however, could be difficult to manage.
“It can be, for sure,” he said. “But we now have experience with DSA members in office. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Rashida Tlaib have built strong records of agitating when it matters and standing on principle—even when they are part of a small minority voting against a measure, or casting lonely votes for programs not backed by party leadership. That bloc is growing.”
Siddique said the DSA was shifting policy debates to the left, noting that even Donald Trump had discussed ending military aid to Israel before the election
Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez pictured with Mayor Zohran Mamdani and New York Governor Kathy Hochul
At the forefront of the newcomers on January 3 will be 32-year-old New Yorker Darializa Avila Chevalier, known as DAC, who is being cast as a successor to AOC.
As recently as 2020, Avila Chevalier tweeted that “the pyromania associated with anarchism is very intriguing to me.” She also called for open borders, demanded the closure of prisons and advocated “ending policing full stop. Period. No more police at all ever.”
Those posts have since been deleted. During the campaign, after her Democratic primary opponent raised them, she said: “My opponent wants to live in the past. He is re-litigating social media posts from half a decade ago and continuing to champion an outdated politics that fails to serve our people. I have grown considerably in the years since these tweets, and I am focused on our community and our community’s future.”
Still, when Vanity Fair’s editor-in-chief asked her in an October 30 interview whether a murderer should be imprisoned, Chevalier avoided giving a direct answer.
She also said Jeffries would receive her support for speaker only if he committed to advancing Medicare for All, protecting voting rights, investing in public housing and ending the use of taxpayer money to fund foreign wars.
Schumer could face an even more difficult challenge in the Senate.
Abdul El-Sayed, elected in Michigan as the first Muslim member of the US Senate, will arrive in Washington in January with a reputation for outspoken politics and plenty of confidence.
“They told us the establishment was too strong, that Washington would decide who won and who lost, and that the capital and its special interests did not want us,” El-Sayed declared Tuesday night. “They want an America that is too small for some of us. We know America is big enough for all of us.”
Even before taking office, El-Sayed was taunting his Republican opponents.
“Together, fighting for something bigger, we won,” he said. “So Mike, enjoy your retirement. I know you have a house in Florida and two yachts. You chose hate, and Michigan chose hope. May we never have to see the likes of you in this state again.”
“JD, habibi, there is delicious irony in the fact that you are constitutionally required to swear me in January. Do you know what that means? Wolverine one, Buckeye zero.”
“Donald, I know you struggled with my name. After JD swears me in January, you can simply call me Senator.”
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The question now is whether Schumer and Jeffries can keep the party’s insurgent wing in line—and whether they even want to try.
Sam Seder, an actor and progressive political commentator, sharply criticized Schumer’s victory speech Tuesday night, describing it as flat and disconnected from the significance of the results.
Can Schumer and Jeffries manage the newly elected lawmakers, and are they prepared for the challenge?
Actor and progressive commentator Sam Seder criticized Schumer’s victory speech as lackluster and out of touch
“Jesus f***ing Christ! Are you f***ing kidding me?” Seder said in an angry rant. “You just had an election where Democrats ran the board in a way that has not happened in maybe 50 years. Do you not have a script f***ing writer? Dude, are you serious?”
He added: “I don’t like his politics, but how do you not get the basic f***ing fundamentals right?”
So, is an internal Democratic conflict taking shape?
“It’s possible, and Democrats are certainly capable of that,” said Grant Reeher, a political science professor at Syracuse University.
Speaking to Our News Outlet, Reeher invoked the familiar joke that Democrats “form into a circle when they need a firing squad.”
“They will certainly need to determine what their central message is, and the party’s left wing will demand a place at the table,” he said.
Reeher urged Democrats to “remain focused on economic issues.”
“But part of the left wants to lean heavily into cultural issues as well. Will they be willing to ease off those issues to some degree?”
Lincoln Mitchell, a political science professor at Columbia University, rejected the idea that a Democratic civil war was imminent, calling that assessment “too dramatic.”
He noted that Jeffries and Schumer both have comfortable majorities, meaning they are unlikely to be held hostage by small factions.
“The example I give is AOC,” Mitchell told Our News Outlet. “She arrived with heated rhetoric, and after a few months realized: I can either fight with Nancy Pelosi, or I can become relevant.”
“My representative in Congress from January will be Darializa Avila Chevalier. Among the newcomers, she may be the furthest left. My district includes very low-income communities but is economically mixed.”
“Will she be unable to deliver for the district because she picked a fight with Hakeem Jeffries? If that happens, I can name several candidates who will be eager to challenge her in 2028.”
Others see the election as evidence that moderates are also gaining strength, pointing to victories by pastor and farmer Adam Hamilton in Kansas, middle school teacher James Talarico in Texas, physician Annie Andrews in South Carolina and the re-election of centrist Jon Ossoff in Georgia.
“AOC arrived with heated rhetoric, then realized she could either fight Nancy Pelosi or become relevant,” said Columbia political science professor Lincoln Mitchell
Darializa Avila Chevalier, the representative-elect for New York’s 13th Congressional District, is viewed as one of the midterms’ most left-wing winners
Some Democrats see Jon Ossoff’s victory in Georgia as evidence that moderates are on the rise
Ossoff’s campaign emphasized that he was “the only Democratic US Senator up for reelection in a state Trump won.”
Johanna Maska, a political strategist who served in the Obama White House, said the strength of the Democratic coalition lay in its diversity.
“The future lies with Democrats. Period,” she told Our News Outlet, arguing that candidates in each state had spoken directly to local voters. Their governing records, she said, would now take center stage.
“Look at someone like New York Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Trump tried to portray him as a jihadist and other things before the election. Since then, all Mamdani has done is govern—and he became so popular that he is out there filling potholes.”
“People here in Los Angeles are asking, ‘Mamdani, can you help us?’”
Many observers see moderates gaining ground, citing the election of pastor and farmer Adam Hamilton in Kansas
Middle school teacher James Talarico in Texas was also cited as an example of the party’s moderate gains
The central question is whether the party’s competing factions will be willing to work together.
“Today begins the great American comeback,” Jeffries proclaimed, offering—at least for now—a message of unity.
“This is not a partisan moment; this is a patriotic one,” he concluded.
“This is not a blue moment or a red moment. It is a red, white and blue moment, because America has won tonight.”
The DSA, however, offered a very different interpretation.
The election proved, the organization wrote on X, that “socialism can win in the US.”
