Who is Hakeem Jeffries? Meet the likely first Black speaker of the US House.
By Shauneen Miranda ·
WASHINGTON — U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries got one step closer to becoming the next speaker after Democrats delivered a sweeping victory in the midterm elections.
If elected by a majority of House members, Jeffries would make history as the first Black person to hold the gavel. The 56-year-old Brooklynite would lead Democrats’ charge against President Donald Trump and congressional Republicans’ policies, while pursuing an affordability and accountability-focused agenda.
Democrats are set to control both the House and Senate in the new Congress after a blue tsunami tore through the country on Election Day.
Jeffries — who’s represented the Empire State’s 8th Congressional District since 2013 — would have to navigate a challenging terrain that includes internal divisions in his caucus and a president all but certain to veto many of the party’s measures.
Jeffries would be the first Democratic speaker since Rep. Nancy Pelosi of California.
How hard to push Trump
Since Trump returned to office in January of last year, Jeffries, whom House Democrats elected as minority leader in late 2022, has stood at the forefront of Democrats’ pushback against the administration, a difficult project amid Republican control of both chambers of Congress and the presidency.
As that pushback ramps up under a Democratic House majority that has campaigned in part on holding the administration accountable, Jeffries will have to decide whether his party will seek to impeach Trump. That undertaking could compete with a slew of policy priorities on tap in the next Congress.
Trump was impeached twice in the House and acquitted both times in the Senate during his first term. Jeffries was one of the seven House impeachment managers during Trump’s first Senate impeachment trial in 2020.
Healthcare a top issue
While leading House Democrats in opposing the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law, Jeffries in July 2025 broke the record for the longest House floor speech.
Speaking on the floor for almost nine hours, Jeffries blasted the package, including its sweeping healthcare cuts that axe roughly $1 trillion in Medicaid spending over 10 years.
Just months later, Democrats shut down the government over their healthcare demands in October 2025 and urged Republicans to negotiate on an extension of the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits. The 43-day shutdown is the longest in U.S. history.
The enhanced tax credits were used by individuals who buy their own health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace. Democrats established them in 2021 as part of a massive COVID-19 relief package and extended them in 2022 through their own sprawling party-line law, but the credits expired in late 2025.
Jeffries led a discharge petition in the House to force a vote on legislation to extend the credits for three years. The effort reached the 218-signature threshold needed to trigger a vote in December 2025 after garnering the support of a handful of moderate GOP members in the House.
The bipartisan bill passed the House in January but stalled in the Senate.
The nonpartisan health research organization KFF has noted that the enhanced tax credits’ expiration has “sharply increased” individuals’ out-of-pocket costs toward premiums.
Democrats campaigned heavily on affordability, and one of their main agenda items in the next Congress will be to permanently restore the credits.
Navigating Medicare for All
Meanwhile, Jeffries would also have to navigate intra-party divisions regarding “Medicare for All,” a movement popular among progressives to extend single-payer national health care to all Americans.
Jeffries has co-sponsored Medicare for All legislation in prior years but stopped putting his name behind the measure once he became the Democratic leader.
He rejected Medicare for All in an interview with NBC News in August, saying “it’s not legislation that I currently am co-sponsoring or that I support.”
Historic figure
Jeffries made history as the first Black lawmaker to lead a party in Congress when he became minority leader in January 2023.
He has also been chair of the House Democratic Caucus, whip of the Congressional Black Caucus and co-chair of the House Democratic Policy and Communications Committee.
Prior to joining Congress, Jeffries served in the New York State Assembly from 2007 to 2012 and also spent several years as a corporate litigator.
Jeffries was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1970 and grew up in the Crown Heights neighborhood. Jeffries is married, and he and his wife have two sons.
He received his bachelor’s degree from the State University of New York at Binghamton, a master’s degree in public policy from Georgetown University and a law degree from New York University.
Originally published by News From The States — D.C. Bureau