House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said on Sunday he’s confident Democrats will take back the House in the 2026 midterm elections and is optimistic about his party’s chances to win back control of the Senate, as well.
In an interview on NBC News’s “Meet the Press,” moderator Kristen Welker asked Jeffries about the Democrats’ sweeping successes in Tuesday’s elections — pointing to victories in New York City, New Jersey, Virginia and California — and asked the Democratic leader how confident he is that Democrats can retake the House going into next year’s midterm elections.
“Democrats are definitely going to take back control of the House of Representatives,” Jeffries told Welker.
“And we’re going to stay focused on the issues that matter: lowering the high cost of living, fixing our broken health care system, and cleaning up corruption, to actually deliver a country that works for working-class Americans, for everyday Americans, and for middle-class Americans,” he continued.
Jeffries noted that Democrats’ chances are stronger in the House, but he said he sees a “viable” path in the Senate to retake the majority next year.
He pointed to other races last week that didn’t get as much national attention but which, he said, also bode well for Democrats.
“I think that the results on Tuesday — which were so decisive in the states that you mentioned, but also in Georgia, in Mississippi, in Pennsylvania, across the country, up and down the ballot including in races that didn’t get the same level of attention — shows that there’s a real path,” Jeffries said.
He said “of course” that’s true in the House, “where we’re only three seats short right now,” noting, “When we flipped the House in 2018, we were 24 seats short.”
“But also a strong and viable path in the Senate,” he continued, “because the American people have had enough, and they want a government that actually puts them first, as opposed to what Republicans have been doing, prioritizing the wealthy, the well-off, and the well-connected.”
