When Hakeem Jeffries took the stage at an election-night celebration just south of the U.S. Capitol, well before midnight, the crowd was already chanting “Speaker Jeffries! Speaker Jeffries!” The Brooklyn Democrat emerged to the strains of “Unbelievable” by the Notorious B.I.G., then looked straight into the camera and declared, “America is back.” He paused, breaking into a broad grin as he savored the moment. After nearly two years in the minority, Jeffries is likely to become the first Black Speaker of the House, his party riding a stunning wave of victories that swept Republicans from power on Capitol Hill. “I learned very early on that a setback was nothing more than a setup for a comeback,” he told the jubilant crowd. “Today begins the great American comeback.” Minutes later, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had his own victory to celebrate a few blocks away: “We have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way,” he told campaign staff.It was a coast-to-coast rout that exceeded the Democrats’ high expectations. As of Wednesday morning, the party had flipped at least 29 House seats, including decisive victories in swing districts in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia, while Senate victories in deep red states like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa gave them control of the upper chamber. The results were a decisive rebuke of a President whose handling of the economy, rising prices, and the war with Iran had fueled widespread discontent, and who spent the closing days of the campaign musing about candidates’ anatomy and dismissing Americans’ concerns over their bottom line. —Photo Illustration by TIME (Source image: Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images)For the first time since Trump returned to Washington, Democrats will be empowered to do more than stomp and shout. They will be able to set the legislative agenda in both chambers of Congress, compel testimony from Administration officials, investigate allegations of corruption, force Republicans to take difficult votes, and block new Cabinet nominees or federal judges. Party leaders see an opportunity to turn the public's discontent with Trump into a sustained argument for returning Democrats to the White House in 2028. “This feels like 2018 on steroids,” says Representative Ted Lieu of California, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, referring to the election during Trump’s first term when Democrats won control of the House. The ensuing two years were marked by a lengthy government shutdown and two impeachments.The next two should be similarly contentious. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic leaders, strategists, and members of Congress in the days before the election revealed a party itching to fight on nearly every front the President has opened. “LAWYER UP,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, who is in line to chair the powerful Oversight Committee, posted on social media as returns came in. Democrats are preparing a legislative offensive aimed at reversing some of the Administration's most unpopular policies, including cuts to Medicaid, the expiration of federal health insurance subsidies, Trump's sweeping tariffs, and the war in Iran. They plan to advance proposals to lower the costs of housing and health care while pursuing aggressive investigations into the President's Administration and business interests. Some party officials are already looking beyond the next two years, hoping to develop a more expansive economic agenda that could define the next presidential campaign.After two years in which Republican majorities on the Hill deferred to Trump, Democrats are poised to reassert Congress’s role as a coequal branch of government. They know much of their agenda stands little chance of becoming law; already, Trump has embraced the moniker “Mr. Veto.” But members believe they can make political gains even when they cannot achieve legislative victories. By advocating for policies that command broad public support, party leaders hope to expose divisions among Republicans, force Trump to defend unpopular decisions, and demonstrate what a government fully led by Democrats would prioritize. Staffers cheer as results in favor of Democratic candies roll in during a midterm election night watch party with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. —Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call/Getty ImagesBut when the midterm victory laps conclude, the Democrats’ challenges will be waiting for them. Even leading up to their commanding win, surveys showed the party remained unpopular. Its leaders are divided over how far left to move, what kind of economic message will win back the voters who abandoned them in 2024, and how aggressively to confront Trump. Democrats are split on how seriously to pursue a third Trump impeachment, a path that many party leaders see as a political dead end. “If we make Donald Trump the center of our focus, we will lose this moment in history,” says Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. “We need to deal with the American people’s problems.”There’s also a risk that Democrats have raised expectations they cannot meet. After campaigning on promises to lower prices, restore government accountability, and rein in a President they portray as dangerously unconstrained, they now have to demonstrate their governance can make a tangible difference in Americans' lives. The temptation to interpret the election as a sweeping mandate could be especially perilous for a party whose recent victories have owed as much to dissatisfaction with Republicans as to enthusiasm for its own leadership. “I'm really worried that we're going to misread victory as an endorsement of us or America falling in love with Democrats,” says Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. “We need to remember that we have been asked to audition for a role in which the party has failed.” The warning hangs over the plans Democrats are preparing to put into motion. The next two years in Washington are likely to be defined by confrontation and gridlock. Now Democrats have the task of convincing Americans that this is what victory looks like. In mid-September, House Democrats gathered in a basement conference room in the U.S. Capitol to discuss strategy. National polling predicted a blue wave and Democrats were giddy about the prospect of making gains across the country. But they had yet to settle on a message for the final weeks of the campaign. Members swapped tales from the campaign trail that revealed dueling frustrations among the electorate. In competitive districts, constituents were furious about soaring gasoline and diesel prices. In Democratic strongholds, voters were obsessed with corruption, expressing the belief that Trump and his inner circle appeared to be profiting off the presidency. Then Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland spoke up, offering a formulation that crystallized the party’s closing argument. “We're talking about the same thing,” Raskin told colleagues. “Accountability and affordability are not a fork in the road for us politically. They are two sides of the same coin.” Candidates in swing districts began hammering the idea that corruption in the federal government and a cost-of-living crisis were intertwined. Their agenda will be guided by the same concept. Democrats are preparing a flurry of investigations into Trump and his allies, with the goal of exposing alleged abuses of power and putting the President's financial dealings under public scrutiny. The idea is to tie as many of these probes as possible to Americans’ economic stress. Joshua Miller, director of Congress Watch at Public Citizen, a progressive think tank, says members of his organization have been meeting with Democratic officials for months to discuss how to hold hearings Americans will see as meaningful, not merely performative. “This is the first step to actually auditioning for what a significant reform agenda would look like if Democrats were given unified control in 2029,” Miller says. “It’s also the first step to regaining the American people's trust.”President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a midterm campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa on Nov. 1. —Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty ImagesIn the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, expected to be chaired by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, are preparing to play central roles in the investigative offensive. Their House counterparts on the Judiciary and Oversight committees are gearing up for an equally aggressive push. Raskin, a Maryland progressive and former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment prosecution, is likely to become House Judiciary Chair, while Garcia is expected to take the helm of Oversight. Both committees have been hiring, recruiting several dozen additional lawyers and staff. According to staffers familiar with the committees’ plans, the committees intend to probe Trump’s cryptocurrency dealings; Truth Social’s sale of faster access to his market-moving posts, a service that could give paying trading firms an edge over other investors; the luxury presidential aircraft donated by the Qataris; and allegations that wealthy and well-connected donors and allies secured tariff exemptions or other government favors in exchange for contributions to Trump pet projects like the White House ballroom or Trump-aligned PACs. They’re also demanding records of Trump’s AI chatbot usage, citing a TIME report that the President consulted Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok before launching the January raid that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. Democrats are keen to scrutinize Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, over alleged conflicts of interest (which Kushner has denied) stemming from his central role in Middle East peace negotiations and his investment firm’s ties to Gulf states. Democrats also want to investigate whether 1789 Capital, an investment firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, profited from political connections or advanced knowledge of federal funding decisions affecting companies in its portfolio. Among them is Vulcan Elements, which secured a $620 million Pentagon loan months after 1789 invested. (1789 denies wrongdoing and says Trump Jr. does not participate in its investment decisions.) “You have endless amounts of grift coming out of the White House from the entire family,” Garcia alleges. “It’s like watching The Sopranos,” adds Raskin. (In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said “there are no conflicts of interest” and insisted that “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses.”)Jared Kushner speaks at a Board of Peace High Level Briefing in New York City on Sep. 23. —Ryan Murphy—Getty ImagesLooming over these investigations is the question of whether to try to impeach Trump for a third time. Jeffries, who declined an interview for this story, isn’t tipping his hand, saying only that Democrats “haven't ruled anything out.” But many Democrats are wary about another impeachment. Senator Adam Schiff of California, an impeachment manager in Trump’s first term, says his party needs to be clear-eyed about public sentiment. “We're going to need to see where the country is,” he says. But voter appetite alone would not set them up for success; Democrats know there would be little chance to obtain the two-thirds supermajority in the Senate required to convict and remove Trump from office.The hesitancy surrounding a Trump impeachment could fade. In 2018, Democratic leaders talked down the prospects of impeachment, only to start proceedings a year later. The lawmakers already in favor of impeachment hearings call it a matter of historical precedent and public duty. “The base will also demand it,” says Representative Ro Khanna of California, who is exploring a run for president in 2028. Voters themselves are torn on impeaching Trump again, with a slight majority of those polled in an October NBC News Decision Desk Poll supporting it. For now, according to conversations with more than two dozen lawmakers, Democrats are coalescing around a compromise option: targeting Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for impeachment instead. A resolution was introduced earlier this fall to impeach Hegseth for allegations of unauthorized military operations in Iran, Yemen, the Caribbean, and the eastern Pacific Ocean. Additional articles allege extrajudicial killings, ignoring laws to minimize civilian casualties, and the unauthorized capture of Maduro. Representative Adam Smith of Washington, who is positioned for a second round as chair of the House Armed Services Committee, says by targeting Hegseth instead of Trump, Democrats believe they may be able to draw enough Senate Republicans to join them. “It's got a bigger chance of getting a stronger bipartisan vote, and sort of building momentum,” Smith says.With ten days to go until the midterm election, Bob Harvie, the Democrat running against Representative Brian Fitzpatrick in Pennsylvania’s 1st District, stood before an auditorium of prospective voters to take their questions. Sarah McBride, a 43-year-old single mom and self-described independent, approached the microphone in the newly renovated school. She sounded tired and a little nervous. “I guess what I’ve been left wondering is like, are you a fighter?” she asked. “The last thing we need in Congress is another wallflower Democrat who is going to be too afraid to make a move and do anything.”Harvie, who unseated Fitzpatrick, hopes to show voters like McBride that he and nearly 30 newly- elected colleagues in the House can turn their campaign trail rhetoric into legislation that can improve their lives. In the first week of the new Congress, according to lawmakers and aides, House Democrats plan to advance legislation to rescind Trump’s tariffs, restore expired Affordable Care Act premium subsidies, and reverse $1 trillion in Medicaid cuts. They also plan to put forth a resolution to require Trump to either end the war in Iran or obtain congressional authorization to continue it. Senate leaders have been less clear about their immediate agenda, though members echoed many of the same priorities as House Democrats. Democrats see repealing the tariffs and ending the war as their two biggest opportunities to address the country’s economic downturn. “If we are able to reverse at least one or both of those things, that would be massive,” says Representative Brendan Boyle of Pennsylvania, who is in line to become the next chair of the House Budget Committee. “I look at that as basically the whole ballgame.”It’s not clear how they intend to win it. Senate Democrats may look to a process known as budget reconciliation as a way to pass tax and spending legislation with simple majorities, bypassing the 60-vote filibuster threshold. But those bills would still need to get through Trump. Democrats will need Republican support in the Senate to override presidential vetoes. Congress has already passed nonbinding measures under the War Powers Resolution to end military action in Iran, which Trump has rejected and ignored. “We don’t have an off switch,” Smith says. The party could also attempt to block Iran war funds through appropriations, or threaten a shutdown over the issue. But that would require members, including those in competitive districts, risk being accused of withholding support from troops in the field. Their best option may be ramping up pressure through messaging votes. But many in the party, especially the progressive wing, see value in picking fights that force Trump to defend unpopular decisions, illustrating for voters what a Democratic government would prioritize. “We need to demonstrate to Americans that we’re willing to take shots,” says Representative Summer Lee of Pennsylvania. “I think that that is going to be just as important as making them.”Some Democrats fear looking feckless if they pursue an agenda that’s laser-focused on fighting the Trump Administration and gets nowhere. Many are keen to maintain the emphasis on affordability that helped lift them to power. One slate of proposals, authored by the center-left New Democrats caucus, urges the party to focus on five areas: the costs of groceries, housing, health care, energy, and family care. A separate agenda from the Congressional Progressive Caucus includes bills to fund expanded affordable child care, another to provide downpayment assistance for first-time homeowners, and to raise federal overtime pay. "Every single week we should be passing clear, bold policy that would reduce prices and increase paychecks,” says Representative Greg Casar of Texas, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. Other priorities include measures tackling AI regulation, data centers, and reproductive health. Even if none of these become law, party strategists see upside to forcing Trump to veto popular bills. “We’re telling the country that these are our priorities,” says Schiff, “and if you give us the White House in two years, then we’ll be able to more fully deliver.” It’s an approach that echoes the party’s strategy a generation ago. When Democrats seized control of Congress under an unpopular Republican president in 2006, they used the ensuing gridlock to build their case for gaining more power. “We got a lot done in Congress,” says former Democratic National Committee Chair Jaime Harrison, “but it was all vetoed and stalled by George W. Bush, and then we hung that obstruction around the necks of the Republican Party going into ’08.”Democrats could find opportunities to send Trump bills he would actually sign, particularly on pocketbook issues where their proposals overlap with his promises, such as lowering prescription drug prices or expanding the housing supply. The president has signaled some willingness to cut deals. “What happens is I veto everything,” Trump told reporters in October of the possibility of a Democratic-controlled Congress. “You veto, veto, veto, and then they come and they say, ‘How do we get it done?’”As Democrats take power, a central question is how well they can work together to wield it. The first test will come as both chambers choose their leaders. The Senate victory puts Schumer in a strong position to return as majority leader, several Senate Democrats and strategists tell TIME. It marks a turnaround from March 2025, when his decision to help advance a Republican funding bill to avert a government shutdown prompted calls for him to step aside. “If you bring home the bacon and you bring us to victory, then you deserve to stay,” says Senator Ruben Gallego of Arizona, who credited Schumer with recruiting candidates who flipped Republican-held seats this cycle and largely holding the caucus together against Medicaid cuts last year. Danny Weiss, a onetime chief of staff to former Speaker Nancy Pelosi, noted the 75-year-old Schumer could be challenged in a moment when there’s an appetite for younger leadership. “But usually,” he notes, “you get rewarded for pulling off a miraculous win.”Sen. Chuck Schumer speaks during a press conference after voting at Public School 321 elementary school in the Brooklyn borough of New York on Election Day. —Yuki Iwamura—APWithin the incoming House Democratic caucus, support for Jeffries to be Speaker is wide, but not necessarily deep. Allies describe him as a politically savvy but cautious leader. Interviews with a wide range of current and incoming members suggest he is well positioned to become Speaker when the caucus convenes to elect one on Jan. 3. But some members see his caution as a liability in a moment when Democrats need to show their strength. A handful of progressive members have not committed to backing him. The incoming freshmen include democratic socialists like Darializa Avila Chevalier and Chris Rabb who won their races in part by running against the party establishment. “Is Jeffries willing to meet us halfway?” Rabb asks. Unlike Republican House Speaker Mike Johnson, Jeffries appears poised to lead a majority large enough to pass legislation without unanimous support from either wing of his caucus. But vocal dissenters could still undermine his efforts to project party unity. The five incoming socialist lawmakers have been quietly coordinating their strategy since the summer, holding meetings in person and over Zoom and exchanging messages in a group chat as they weigh how to advocate for progressive causes. They have discussed what concessions they might extract for support on pivotal votes, which procedural tools could give them greater influence, and whether they could enlist other lawmakers dissatisfied with the party's direction. The group is slightly larger than the so-called Squad, the group of legislators that has been pushing Democrats to take far-left positions for the better part of a decade, and it’s yet to settle on a formal list of demands, let alone a name for the nascent socialist wing of the party. “Every piece of leverage needs to be on the table,” says incoming Representative Claire Valdez of New York, a member of the group, who refers to her comrades as “the bloc” for now. The newcomers, in coordination with progressives already in Congress, may call for votes on Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, and blocking weapons sales to Israel. “If they start pushing Medicare for All, that causes a lot of political problems within the caucus,” says Representative Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, a moderate democrat. “To ensure we actually win the White House, it would be smart for us to put out a practical agenda.” Israel may be an even dicier issue for Jeffries, a longtime supporter of the Jewish state whose Brooklyn district includes an Orthodox community. Over the past year, nearly half of House Democrats voted to cut off aid to Israel. The public falling-out between Michigan Senate candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Haley Stevens over Israel policy offered a reminder of the divisions bubbling beneath the surface. How Jeffries enforces consensus is an open question. After two centrist Democrats, Representatives Jared Golden of Maine and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington, broke with their party on a procedural vote in September, Democratic leaders discussed establishing guardrails to limit dissent within the ranks. One idea, proposed by Jeffries’ leadership team, was to penalize members who voted against the party’s own procedural rules governing legislation, potentially costing them coveted committee assignments or leadership positions. Another idea tied a member’s ability to advance within the caucus to their financial contributions to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee. The suggestions sparked quick backlash from progressives, who saw the proposals as an attempt to consolidate power just as a new generation of left-wing lawmakers was preparing to enter Congress. “I think it's ludicrous,” says incoming Representative Melat Kiros, a DSA-backed progressive from Denver. “For them to be punishing other members for not meeting their agenda goes in direct conflict with what the American people want.” Jeffries speaks with reporters during a midterm election night watch party in Washington. —Tom Brenner—Getty ImagesSome of these disagreements go to the heart of a question Democrats have struggled to answer since their defeat in 2024: whether their path back to national power lies in embracing the economic populism championed by their ascendant left wing or rebuilding the more ideologically diverse coalition that once made them more competitive nationally. Both factions believe the election vindicated their approach. Representative Jason Crow of Colorado, who helped recruit Democratic candidates in competitive districts, says the party has just started bringing back voters in working-class and rural communities and can’t squander that. “The Democratic Party has to be very honest that we have fallen short in the past,” Crow says, adding that people want a government “that can respond to how quickly the world and Americans' lives are changing." The midterm election may have proven that Americans sought a check on Trump in Congress. But it offered no clear answer about the kind of Democratic Party voters would be willing to send back to the White House. The next two years will offer an opportunity to shape that conversation, and the candidates who emerge in 2028 will have to navigate the divisions that Democrats have yet to resolve. “If we mess up,” says Gallego, “those voters will swing right back to Republicans in 2028, and we'll lose the next election.”