Inside the Democratic plan to recapture the House majority in 2026 - WaPo
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is engaged in a major effort to redefine what his unpopular party stands for, readying a new Democratic agenda intended to turbocharge efforts to recapture the House in 2026 and make him speaker.
Jeffries (D-New York) has heard the many complaints from Democratic lawmakers clamoring for a proactive agenda following the party’s devastating losses in the 2024 election — one that doesn’t revolve entirely around fighting President Donald Trump. He’s racing to release a plan to revive a depressed base and sell voters on a Democratic Party that hears their concerns on affordability, safety and helping the working class.
But the effort is running up against the harsh political realities of the moment, from Trump’s aggressive efforts to revamp the congressional map through redistricting in Republican-led states to a tarnished Democratic brand with abysmal approval ratings, according to polls. Jeffries has launched listening sessions around the country and commissioned his own polling to map a way back from the wilderness.
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“The biggest problem we had in 2024 was Democrats weren’t seen as being on the right side of cost of living, and nothing else mattered when we’re on the wrong side of that,” said Jesse Ferguson, a strategist who previously worked for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. “The combination of health care, taxes, Medicaid cuts, tariffs all put together, Democrats now have a real story we can tell about how Trump’s agenda has betrayed people, and we have to be relentless in telling it.”. Interviews with more than a dozen House Democratic lawmakers, aides and strategists suggest that Jeffries has his work cut out for him.
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But the issues Democrats are likely to include — health care and lowering costs — are hardly novel, and they’ve run on them before. Those involved in crafting the 2026 agenda say the problem, however, has been in how they’ve previously communicated and that they’ve also avoided issues — like crime and immigration — that splinter their party. The list of principles currently doesn’t contain any stances on crime and immigration, either. The agenda is not final and will change, Democrats say. “It’s imperative that immigration becomes one of the pillars of Democrats’ policy priorities going into the next Congress. ... We cannot shy away from this issue,” said Rep. Gabe Vasquez (D-New Mexico), who recently put together a proposal on immigration.
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