With the midterm elections 100 days away, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries launched a direct attack on Republicans, accusing them of abandoning core campaign promises and leaving voters worse off on two fronts: the cost of living and military entanglement overseas.
Speaking on CNN's State of the Union on Sunday, the New York congressman said Republicans have "nothing to run on" after Trump's presidency failed to deliver on pledges to reduce inflation and avoid foreign wars. Instead, Jeffries argued, the GOP has resorted to pushing election security narratives to distract from economic pain.
The timing of Jeffries' remarks came just after New Jersey Governor Mike Sherrill's disclosure that a software error had resulted in 6,600 noncitizens registering to vote in the state. While fewer than 400 actually cast ballots before the problem was caught and corrected, Trump and Republican allies seized on the revelation to fuel broader claims about noncitizen voting, despite the isolated nature of the incident.
Jeffries framed that pivot as a calculated distraction. Republicans, he suggested, prefer hammering election integrity claims rather than confronting harder truths about their record on affordability and foreign policy.
The centerpiece of his critique was Trump's involvement in a military conflict with Iran that began in February 2024, shortly after Trump's election victory. Trump had campaigned explicitly against initiating "endless wars in the Middle East." By Sunday, 18 U.S. service members had been killed and hundreds more wounded in the fighting. Gas and grocery prices have spiked as a result.
"It was Donald Trump who promised to lower costs on day one," Jeffries told CNN host Dana Bash. "But we know that costs haven't gone down in this country. Costs have gone up. It was Donald Trump who said that he was elected not to start wars, endless wars in the Middle East, but to stop them, and then turned around and has gotten us involved in this reckless war of choice in Iran that has skyrocketed gas prices on the American people."
A Guardian poll conducted ahead of the midterms found that 95% of Americans believe the country is facing an affordability crisis. Jeffries zeroed in on the human toll: families working full-time jobs but struggling to keep food on the table, afford gas, or pay rent and mortgages month to month.
He also pointed to Republican action from a year prior, when the party had cut over $1 trillion from Medicaid, the federal health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. "They have nothing to run on," Jeffries said. "We're going to run on fighting for an affordable America."
Polling analysis from Decision Desk HQ suggests Democrats are favored to win a House majority in the November elections, though Republicans are narrowly favored to keep control of the Senate. The political math remains fluid heading into the final stretch.
Author James Rodriguez: "Jeffries struck at the heart of what could decide these midterms: voter frustration over broken promises on the two issues Americans care most about. If that message sticks, November could be rougher for Republicans than the Senate numbers suggest."
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