Hakeem Jeffries and the Democrats’ Leadership Problem

The Democratic Party has a leadership problem, though no one is talking about it, at least not publicly. The party’s two congressional leaders are grasping at straws and tilting at orange windmills – but neither one is effectively driving an agenda that could win back the voters Democrats lost in 2024. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is doing a lot of grandstanding but appears to have nothing of substance to contribute, and his Senate counterpart, Chuck Schumer (D-NY), might just be the least popular person in the upper chamber. Is there anyone who can turn things around before the 2026 midterm elections?

Democrats seem to believe that attacking President Donald Trump and Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) point-man Elon Musk is a winning strategy or maybe a distraction from their internal problems. The truth is, if aliens landed outside Democratic National Committee headquarters, walked inside, and said, “Take me to your leader,” there would likely follow an uncomfortable silence punctuated by an embarrassed shuffling of feet. Probably, a single tumbleweed would roll across the lobby.

According to seven opinion polls aggregated by RealClear Polling, Schumer has an average favorable rating of 27.4, with an unfavorable rating of 46.3. That’s a spread of -18.9. To put that in perspective, Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD) had a favorable/unfavorable spread of -4.5, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson was at -5.2, and Hakeem Jeffries boasts a spread of -0.4. So, in terms of public approval, all congressional leaders are underwater – but Sen. Schumer is exploring the ocean floor.

Speaking of aliens, Hakeem Jeffries has made a string of statements over the past few weeks that suggest he might not actually be living on the same planet as the rest of America.

Hakeem Jeffries Tells It Like It’s Not

On March 3, Jeffries posted a video on the X social media platform and claimed, “[T]he American people are with us – all across the country.” He made this statement outside the US Capitol building, not only alone but also with not a soul in sight, even though the wide shot of the camera captured almost the entire building behind him. It was the perfect metaphor for how out of touch the House’s top Democrat seems to be.

After Trump’s recent address to a joint session of Congress – an address that received high marks from a significant majority of Americans – Hakeem Jeffries panned it as “one of the most divisive presidential addresses ever delivered in the history of the country.” By no objective standard was Trump’s speech divisive. Democrats, on the other hand, have a documented history of demeaning, demonizing, or ridiculing half of the nation, going back at least to Hillary Clinton’s ill-conceived “basket of deplorables” remark.

While Trump has been in office for not quite two months, there are some green shoots of recovery from the Joe Biden years: Gas prices, the infamous egg prices, and even inflation are seemingly moving in the right direction. The number of illegal border-crossers has declined to a level not seen in years; Russia and Ukraine are, for the first time since the invasion, considering a ceasefire and peace talks. Yet, Hakeem Jeffries said of Trump, “This dude is not winning anywhere.”

Most recently, the minority leader claimed his party had Republicans “on the run,” adding, during a national DNC call, “They are on the run in terms of the economy. In fact, Donald Trump and Republicans are crashing the economy in real time.” Yet America is still, for the most part, dealing with the Biden economy. Even if it were “crashing,” Trump hasn’t been in office long enough to crash it.

Poor Leadership or Poor Judgment?

Apart from his astonishing ability to talk as though his party is enjoying historically high – rather than historically low – approval, Hakeem Jeffries appears to have little control over Democratic representatives. Or, if he does, then he exhibits extraordinarily poor judgment. The obviously planned refusal by Democrats to stand and applaud some very worthy guests at Trump’s joint session address was not at all well-received, even among Democratic voters.

That was an awful misstep, and some congressional Democrats have realized that they didn’t win any friends by disrespecting regular Americans with tragic stories.

So, is Hakeem Jeffries the leader that Democrats need to win back the trust of the American people? Beyond the Beltway, Democrats don’t have a Trump or an Obama around whom to coalesce. The closest thing they have to a party leader, in terms of day-to-day policy and politics, is Jeffries. But if he wants to have any chance of leading Democrats to midterm success, he might think about getting a less extreme agenda on the table and stop using “orange man bad” as the only platform on which to run – because that didn’t work out too well in 2024.

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