PEEKSKILL, N.Y.— The election was still days away, but at a rally in this swing-district town in the Hudson River Valley on Saturday, a chanting crowd was already proclaiming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries “SPEAKER JEFFRIES!”
Democrats are convinced they will win the seats they need to seize the House majority and make Jeffries (D-New York) speaker of the House. They need to net three, but are aiming for potentially dozens more. The party hopes to power those wins by using a playbook borrowed from President Donald Trump’s successful 2024 White House bid, when he made high costs a central part of his campaign.
Democrats observed the effectiveness of that message and have sought to channel anger over prices that have only continued to rise, while recruiting candidates who can speak to the issue. As Trump’s approval ratings have dropped to historic lows and voters have become even more worried about high prices, Democrats have taken advantage of the fact they are out of power to craft a simple midterms pitch: Republicans are at fault for the rising cost of living and Democrats have the solution.
Republicans have worked to fend off Democratic attacks, arguing the Biden administration is responsible for inflation and that Democrats want to continue what they call socialist policies. The party also deployed mid-decade redistricting to try to draw more favorable seats in red states like Florida and Texas and House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has questioned the accuracy of polls, repeatedly asserting that Republicans will hold the House. Economists are skeptical that Democrats will be able to do much to rein in prices if they win power next week.
But in this final campaign stretch, Democrats remain bullish. Redistricting has not set them as far back as projections initially suggested, and despite the GOP’s massive dollar advantage, Democrats feel their candidates have been successful in rebutting Republican attacks on the campaign trail. If there were ever a year to try to win long-shot races, they believe, this is it.
“Every dollar, every volunteer is being deployed right now, and no regrets,” Rep. Suzan DelBene (D-Washington), chair of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, told a group of voters last week in a Colorado district that voted for Trump by 10 percentage points in 2024. “Leave nothing on the table.”
Focus on costs
In November 2024, Democrats were despondent. Trump was heading back to the White House. Republicans had flipped the Senate and defended their House majority. And the GOP had made strides in large part by harnessing anger over high prices and inflation under President Joe Biden.
Democrats took notes.
Jeffries believed the party should work to convince voters that Democrats could make people’s lives more affordable.
As the campaign season progressed, prices became an increasingly salient issue as Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran pushed prices even higher. In poll after poll, voters rated the economy as their top issue. Democrats worked to capitalize on that sentiment, attacking Republicans on affordability at every opportunity. They slammed Trump’s sweeping tariffs, focused on health care costs during the 2025 government shutdown and highlighted the high costs of everyday goods on the campaign trail.
An October Washington Post-ABC News-Ipsos poll suggested Democrats have been successful. It found that 37 percent of Americans trust Democrats more on the economy, while 28 percent trust Republicans more. The same poll found that 59 percent of Americans would rather see Democrats control the next Congress to act as a check on Trump.
Republicans have tried to shift blame for high costs to Democrats, saying they inherited high inflation under Biden.
“Democrats wrecked this economy, and voters know it takes longer to clean up a mess than to make one,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-North Carolina), chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said in a statement.
Arizona Democrat JoAnna Mendoza, a former Marine drill sergeant running in one of the country’s most competitive House races, said Democrats recentering their pitch to voters around costs has been a vital correction from past years when they focused on social issues such as abortion.
Mendoza blamed her party’s failure to address high costs under Biden as one reason scores of Latino voters in border and working-class districts broke for Trump in 2024. Democrats’ shift to their current messaging is why some Latinos — particularly in South Texas — seem to be turning away from the GOP, she said.
“There wasn’t enough focus on the issues that people really care about,” Mendoza said on a recent afternoon after helping pack meals to be distributed to seniors. “2024 was an awakening for a lot of Democrats to say, ‘Oh s—, we should be talking about the economy.’”
‘Secret sauce’
One bright spot for Democrats in 2024: they netted two additional House seats. DelBene, the head of House Democrats’ campaign arm, credited their performance to the party’s “secret sauce” — candidate quality.
“You’ve got to have that crossover appeal,” DelBene said. “These are swing districts we’re talking about.”
In hopes of building on that strategy, the party began recruiting as early as December 2024 for the election two years ahead, encouraging potential candidates who were well known in their home districts, who could appeal to independents and Republicans to run — and who voters would find credible on an economic message.
Democratic leadership then intervened in several primaries in a bid to eliminate candidates they viewed as less viable. The effort yielded mixed results. Several of Democrats’ preferred primary candidates — in Michigan, Maine and California — did not make it to the general election, potentially making races more competitive for Republicans. And the strategy drew considerable controversy, with local Democrats casting it as overreach by the national party.
But by the general election, Democratic leadership was heralding the diverse backgrounds represented in their candidate class, backing several candidates in districts Trump won in 2024 by double digits.
“Their life experiences include service as combat veterans, doctors, nurses, pastors, farmers, teachers, social workers, a Marine drill sergeant who was also a single mom, a hostage negotiator, firefighters, police officers, a Tejano music superstar in the Rio Grande Valley, and even a smoke jumper in Montana,” Jeffries told reporters recently.
In some cases, recruiting a broad spectrum of talent meant supporting candidates who do not agree with parts of the Democratic Party platform but could stay on message on affordability concerns. A handful of candidates have broken from the party on issues ranging from immigration to trans rights in an attempt to appeal to their districts and preempt attacks from Republicans.
Nancy Lacore, who is running to flip a seat in South Carolina, launched an ad last week in which a Republican mayor says Lacore will “secure our border” and “protect girls’ sports,” for example, but has zeroed in on increasing wages and lowering costs.
“People do not have to agree 100 percent on any one platform, but they want to know that they are someone who’s going to listen to them and be their voice in Washington,” Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Massachusetts) said between campaign stops in Florida.
The stakes
Democrats are hoping for a historic sweep this year. Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California), who oversaw the party’s historic gains in 2006 and 2018, said she is hoping to gain as many as 30 more seats.
But even if Democrats gain a House majority, with Trump in the White House for the next two years, they would likely be limited largely to conducting oversight over the Trump administration rather than passing an ambitious legislative agenda. Republicans have greater odds of keeping control of the Senate than the House, and neither chamber is expected to have majorities large enough to overcome a presidential veto.
Jeffries said his party is still working out the details of how it would legislatively address high costs. Several working groups focused on costs for housing, health care, groceries, energy and caregiving are trying to set an agenda for the party’s first 100 days, though economists say there might not be much Congress can actually do to bring down prices.
But Democrats view even a stymied agenda as an opportunity to sell voters on their vision ahead of the presidential contest in 2028.
In Peekskill, supporters who showed up to hear from the potential future House speaker expressed optimism about the new Congress — and a sense of urgency. Anne Hess, a liberal activist, said the party needs to show it can be effective.
“If we have control of Congress and people’s lives aren’t tangibly better,” Hess cautioned, “we won’t win again in 2028.”
— Choi reported from Phoenix, Tucson and Casa Grande, Arizona, and Carbondale, Colorado. Liss-Roy reported from Peeksill, New York. Alfaro reported from Hempstead, New York, and Tampa.
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