The campaign opposing Hakeem Jeffries’ bid to become Speaker of the House has intensified as a petition topping one million signatures calls for fresh leadership, while a newly elected member reports pressure to back the House’s minority leader.
Don Leonard, the Ohio Democrat-elect who flipped a long-wobbly GOP district, said veteran party leaders in the chamber have warned that his tenure would be made unbearable and that his removal could be pursued in 2028 if he refuses to back Jeffries for Speaker.
Leonard disclosed these claims on Instagram. In a Tuesday appearance on Joy Reid’s podcast, he said he would withhold his vote for Jeffries until certain priorities are tackled, notably the role of corporate money in politics and Washington’s backing of the conflicts in Gaza and Iran.
He urged passing a constitutional amendment to overturn the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, arguing it “has allowed corporations and billionaires to hack our operating system.”
Leonard also called for an end to U.S. support for “Israel’s genocide in Gaza” and the “illegal war in Iran, which is draining American pocketbooks, the American treasury and putting American service members at risk.”
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His resistance comes as a Change.org petition urging House members to choose a new speaker who represents all Democratic voters, “not merely the Democratic establishment,” has surpassed 1.1 million signatures.
Nicole Whitted, a political influencer and social media satirist, started the petition in September. It gained additional momentum last week after actor Mark Ruffalo shared it.
Whitted told Atlanta Black Star that her opposition to Jeffries becoming speaker “is about accountability, political influence, and whether Democratic leadership truly represents the values and priorities of the voters it claims to serve. Jeffries’ longstanding ties to corporate donors and influential pro-Israel lobbying organizations, including AIPAC, raise serious concerns about whose interests are being prioritized.”
With Democrats’ sizable gains in the midterms, Jeffries is positioned to become the next Speaker of the House and would be the nation’s first Black speaker, even as the progressive wing of his party pushes back and some voters express a desire for a more radical agent of change in the role.
Leonard is among a small group of newly elected House Democrats who have publicly suggested another leader should hold the post. Yet, more than 40 new members have joined the Democratic majority, and Jeffries could survive a secret-ballot caucus vote on November 18 with at least a few dozen defections, Politico noted.
Even if a progressive challenger enters the race, Jeffries is believed to have sufficient votes to secure his party’s nomination comfortably.
The New York Democrat has faced criticism from some caucus members for not pushing back forcefully enough against what they see as the corruption and cruelty of the Trump administration and the GOP-led Congress.
Their demands include restricting the president and family from enriching themselves through taxpayer-funded business deals and dubious stock trades, opposing tax cuts for the wealthy while restoring social safety net programs, ending the Iran war, and reigning in the violent excesses of ICE and Border Patrol agents rounding up and deporting undocumented immigrants.
Some Democratic members have tied their support for Jeffries to specific concessions.
California Rep. Ro Khanna, a leading progressive voice, said last week that he would press Jeffries to hold votes on halting military aid to Israel, defunding the war in Iran, and advancing Medicare for All, the Jerusalem Post reported.
Like Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Jeffries has also faced criticism from the party’s left flank for his long-standing support of Israel and for accepting financial support from AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and other pro-Israel organizations.
That support has drawn scrutiny at a time when many Americans disapprove of Israel’s conduct in the Middle East, including what many progressives deem an Israeli-led genocide in Gaza amid the ongoing bloody conflict since the deadly Hamas attacks of October 2023.
According to a 2026 NBC News poll, just 32 percent of American voters view Israel positively. Among Democrats, that number falls to 13 percent.
Jeffries received $49,565 in contributions from individual donors associated with AIPAC, $11,700 in direct contributions from AIPAC, and another $314,810 from other pro-Israel funding sources in the 2025–26 election cycle, Newsweek reported.
In races across the country, AIPAC and political spending groups linked to it poured tens of millions of dollars into backing candidates for Congress and other statewide races. While the group backed dozens of winning candidates, Al Jazeera reported that nearly two-thirds of the total money it spent this election cycle went to candidates who lost.
Those races included an unprecedentedly costly campaign against Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a Muslim and progressive Democrat who ran on affordability while strongly criticizing U.S. involvement in the conflicts in Gaza and Iran.
AIPAC spent $30 million to support El-Sayed’s Democratic primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens, and another $9 million to support his Republican challenger in the general election, former U.S. Rep. Mike Rogers.
This prompted Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the independent left-wing standard-bearer, to give El-Sayed $1 million to counter the pro-Israel lobby and rally progressive allies to support him. New York Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez also gave El-Sayed $1 million while campaigning with him in Michigan.
El-Sayed comfortably won the election, beating Rogers 52.5 percent to 45.5 percent.
During his acceptance speech, El-Sayed jauntily cracked, “To AIPAC … Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice.”
Democrats now have a 54–44 majority in the Senate, with two races in Mississippi and Alaska still pending. But during the campaign, when the margin for flipping the Senate to Democratic control seemed razor-thin, Jeffries withheld his endorsement of El-Sayed until Nov. 1, just two days before the election.
The endorsement followed Stevens’ surprise endorsement of Rogers, a move widely viewed as traitorous to the Democratic Party.
That was one apparent misstep among several that led some left-wing Democrats to seek an alternative to Jeffries as speaker.
Like many progressive Democrats, Whitted also took issue with Jeffries’ private August meeting with Trump’s wealthy son-in-law and foreign envoy Jared Kushner. The New York Times reported that their discussions included housing, immigration and the high cost of living.
Kushner has played a major role in U.S. negotiations to end the wars in Iran, Gaza and Ukraine.
Ocasio-Cortez said in September that she had concerns about the meeting, as “Kushner holds this very bizarre role where he is wielding political influence without a political position and the accountability and public transparency that is required in such a position.”
But she endorsed Jeffries as speaker in October, telling MS NOW that her support was based on his backing for public housing financing in New York.
Whitted, a former owner of a landscaping business in Yuma, Arizona, that suffered under Trump’s tariffs and rising inflation, now lives in Phoenix.
“I believe the party’s leadership should reflect the priorities that are energizing Democratic voters: getting corporate money out of politics, protecting and expanding access to healthcare, defending human rights, addressing economic inequality, and holding those in power accountable,” she said. “In my view, Jeffries has failed to demonstrate the bold, independent leadership that this political moment demands.”
Whitted is a paid Change.org ambassador. Newsweek reported that she could receive 30 to 50 cents per signature on her petition, or up to $500,000. She declined to confirm her compensation rate to ABS.
She said she is encouraging Massachusetts Rep. Ayanna Pressley, a member of the progressive “Squad” and “an outspoken advocate for Palestinian human rights and accountability in Gaza,” to challenge Jeffries for the speaker position.
So far, neither Pressley nor any other Democrat has expressed interest in doing so.
Jeffries, meanwhile, has promised to “deliver the dramatic change the American people are demanding.”
When he announced his candidacy for speaker last week in a “Dear Colleague” letter, he claimed credit for leading the fight against MAGA extremism and pushing back against Republicans by “exposing the harm done by the One Big Ugly Bill,” including drastic cuts to Medicaid.
He also pointed to his opposition to the war in Iran, “delivering the most meaningful housing affordability bill in 40 years,” and leading the fight for transparency and accountability in connection with the Epstein files.
Jeffries promised to lower the high cost of housing, health care, groceries and goods, gas and utilities, and caregiving.
In his first 100 days, he said House Democrats “must act to reverse the Medicaid cuts, restore SNAP funding, extend the Affordable Care Act tax credits, eradicate the Trump tariffs and stop the reckless war of choice in Iran.”
He also said he would lead the charge to “hold the crooks accountable,” including the “Trump Cartel,” and ensure Congress acts as “a check and balance on an out-of-control executive branch.”
At a press conference Monday, Jeffries said he was a “hard yes” on the resolution to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, a Kentucky Republican.
Massie said on the House floor Monday that Hegseth “knowingly executed and implemented unlawful orders to initiate war against a foreign nation” and “remains a threat to the Constitution if allowed to remain in office.”
Asked about President Trump’s move to elevate hardline immigration enforcement advocate Stephen Miller to White House chief of staff, Jeffries said Democrats can work with the administration on affordability and other major issues “without having to work with someone who is so clearly unqualified.”
He called Miller “the architect of the violent mass deportation machine,” which he said House Democrats will not “give a dime” to support.
Responding to the demands from progressive Democrats, Jeffries said he planned to speak with every member.
“I’m going to work hard to talk to every single member about what we’ve been able to do together over the last two years, and what the opportunities are for us to do together in the next two years, to deliver upon the dramatic change that the American people so decisively voted for.”
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