Hakeem Jeffries is on the verge of making history as the first Black speaker of the House after Democrats won control of the chamber. The New York Democrat, 56, led his party through victories that exceeded expectations, and his decisions will help shape how Democrats use their majority to challenge President Trump’s agenda.
Jeffries had been preparing for that possibility while Democrats were in the minority. On the evening of Trump’s inauguration last year, he met with senior aides at a private dinner in Washington to discuss how to use the party’s limited power in Congress. One attendee recalled Jeffries saying, “We just have to win. If we don’t win in 2026, it’s over.”
Jeffries grew up in a working-class home in Brooklyn’s Crown Heights neighborhood during the 1980s. At the time, the area was a center of Black activism and faced crime and unrest associated with the crack cocaine epidemic.
Sources: The New York Times Politics.