House Democrats "inundated" with calls telling them not to elect Jeffries speaker

Democratic House members and members-elect are being bombarded with phone calls and emails urging them not to elect Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as speaker, more than a dozen lawmakers and aides tell Axios. Why it matters: The calls point to a fundamental disconnect between House Democrats — most of whom are likely to vote for Jeffries — and at least a portion of their grassroots base. An incoming House Democrat told Axios they are "getting inundated" and have received "about 150" calls since the election urging them not to vote for Jeffries. A senior House Democrat said they received "over 500" calls in the last two days, telling Axios they also got asked about it in-person at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in their district. "I think our numbers are higher" than 500, said another House Democrat. "It's our No. 1 issue, and it's not close." State of play: Jeffries is in pole position to become speaker of the House after Democrats' landslide victory Tuesday, which is set to give them a massive majority of more than 250 seats. He has enjoyed the unanimous support of his caucus since becoming Democratic leader in 2022 and has never had a single House Democrat defect from him in a speaker vote. But the last speaker ballot was in January 2025, right before Democrats' grassroots base began railing against party leadership for what they perceived as insufficient resistance to the Trump administration. "Democrats in both chambers can't go back to business-as-usual politics. People want leadership that's ready to join the rest of us in this new era of politics," Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, said in a statement to Axios on Friday. A Democratic chief of staff who said their office got "about 300" calls told Axios: "Lots of people are saying make Jamie Raskin speaker." Raskin (D-Md.) has often been floated as a more progressive alternative to Jeffries, whose associations with pro-Israel groups and corporate PACs have long be