Report: Jeffries Faces Pressure After 2 Democrats Vote with Republicans

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is reportedly in a tough spot after two Democrats recently voted with Republicans as midterm elections approach.

Jeffries has voiced confidence about Democrats retaking the House in November, while some Democrat candidates were said to have balked at supporting his leadership, per Breitbart News.

The Hill reported Thursday:

From the left, Jeffries is facing pressure to punish fellow Democratic Reps. Jared Golden (Maine) and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (Wash.), who both blindsided the caucus on Tuesday by supporting a Republican rule that salvaged much of the GOP’s September agenda. Some want them stripped of key committee assignments. But another camp of Democrats is warning that such drastic disciplinary action would be ineffective, at best, and backfire, at worst. Not only is Golden retiring at the end of this term, making any punishment fleeting, but Gluesenkamp Perez is among the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents. Punishing her ahead of November could lend ammunition to her GOP challenger at the eleventh hour in a campaign cycle when every battleground seat could tip the scales of power in the next Congress.

After announcing in November he would not seek reelection, Golden criticized his party regarding the government shutdown and how they have embraced extremism, per Breitbart News.

He said at the time:

We’re allowing the most extreme, pugilistic elements of our party to call the shots. Just look again at the shutdown. For as long as I can remember, we have opposed shutting down the government over policy disputes. We criticized Republicans for taking hostages this way. But this year, reeling from the losses of the last election, too many Democrats have given into demands that we use the same no-holds barred, obstructionary tactics as the GOP.

In July, Breitbart News reported that Gluesenkamp Perez has “overseen, enforced, and supports a radical state party platform that includes several policies central to the Democratic Socialists’ agenda.”

As the Democrat Party grapples with its far-left members and how their influence is shifting the party even further into extremism, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) expressed optimism in August about Republicans’ chances in the midterms, Breitbart News reported.

“This is going to come down to a race of about 19 seats that will decide the fate of the Republic. It’s a contrast election, a contrast between common sense and crazy. I’m telling you, our base is going to turn out, and we’re going to hold the House Republicans,” he said.