Jeffries Faces Steep Test as Far Left Builds Strength in Congress

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Just days after she was elected to Congress in 2018, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez joined protesters outside Nancy Pelosi’s office, urging the speaker-in-waiting to take more aggressive action on climate change.

More than 50 people were arrested that day as Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who had won her seat after upsetting one of Ms. Pelosi’s loyal lieutenants in a primary, told reporters she had not yet decided whether she would support the longtime party leader for speaker in January. (Eventually, she did.)

Now Representative Hakeem Jeffries, the New York Democrat who succeeded Ms. Pelosi as party leader and is in line to be speaker if his party wins the House in November, is facing a similar challenge.

This time it is Darializa Avila Chevalier, the 32-year-old democratic socialist who defeated a longtime ally of Mr. Jeffries in a New York primary this week. She is now the most polarizing face of a new crop of far-left progressives unseating incumbents across the country who are changing the face of the House’s Democratic caucus in ways that could pose a major challenge for their leaders.

Mr. Jeffries, who has led House Democrats since 2022, is poised to become the first Black speaker next year. With no other Democrat currently stepping forward to challenge him, it is unlikely the incoming faction of anti-establishment members would block his path.

But they could make his job very difficult, stoking the same kind of bitter divisions that have made the House Republican majority ungovernable in recent years.

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