Authored by Matt Margolis via PJMedia.com,
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries is having a rough time right now. For months, the Speaker’s gavel looked to be easily within his reach come November, but recent developments have made it look like it could slip away.
He’s a little touchy about it. During a press conference on Wednesday, Jeffries had a bit of a tantrum, not only invoking the Confederacy but snapping at a CNN reporter who dared to ask him a question.
Last month, the Supreme Court issued a 6-3 ruling in Louisiana v. Callais, striking down Louisiana’s congressional map as an unconstitutional racial gerrymander. The ruling opened the door for several red states to redistrict and eliminate race-based districts.
To say Jeffries isn’t taking it well is an understatement.
"Because we know this unprecedented assault on black political representation, the likes of which we have not seen since the Jim Crow era, the ghost of the Confederacy has afflicted the United States Supreme Court majority and is invading and haunting the nation right now," Jeffries said.
"And we take that seriously. And we know it's going to continue, which is why Democrats are committed to launching a decisive and overwhelming response in advance of the 2028 election, to ensure that it's the American people who are the ones who get to decide who's in the majority in the House, who's in the majority in the Senate, and ultimately in 2028, who gets elected as the next president of the United States of America.”
But it was his exchange with CNN's Manu Raju that got genuinely uncomfortable. Raju pressed Jeffries on Democrats' failed attempt to gerrymander Virginia's congressional maps when the Supreme Court of Virginia ruled that the process Democrats used to eliminate four GOP-leaning districts violated the state constitution, invalidating that map as well. Groups aligned with Jeffries had spent over $40 million on the failed effort.
"Mr. Leader, I mean, you ultimately lost this. Do you take personally—" Raju began.
"Who lost?" Jeffries shot back, clearly angry.
"You lost in court—"
"Who lost?"
"Democrats did," Raju said.
"Do you take personal responsibility for investing so much time and resources, tens of millions of dollars, in an ultimately fruitless effort?"
"We did the right thing," Jeffries said, "and this effort is not over."
As you can see, Jeffries got a bit undignified there, trying to distance himself from the failed effort that the Democratic Party wasted tens of millions of dollars on. On top of that, multiple red states are now redrawing House districts in the wake of Callais. While some are moving aggressively, others are stalled by legal challenges and political calculations.
Sabato's Crystal Ball now gives Republicans a slight edge in Safe/Likely/Leans seats, and prediction markets now show the GOP favored to retain the Senate while closing the gap in the House race.
The overall trajectory is clear — and it's not favorable for Democrats.
The problem for Democrats, of course, isn’t just the short-term implications but the long-term structural problem they face. The 2026 midterms and the 2028 presidential election may be their last chance to win back power before the math and the map become too big a hurdle for them to overcome. Population shifts mean blue states will lose congressional seats after the 2030 census, costing them Electoral College votes as well.
In other words, Jeffries is in full panic mode, and he’s having a hard time hiding it.