Much has been made of Republicans’ internal struggles in the last few weeks after it took fifteen votes and concessions to conservatives for Kevin McCarthy to be elected Speaker of the House.

But Democrats may have some problems of their own, that the corporate-controlled media has ignored.

Now, the Democrats’ new House leader Hakeem Jeffries just got some bad news from his own team.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was the House leader on the Democrat side for two decades.

She was elected Speaker of the House after Democrats prevailed in the 2006 Midterms during the George W. Bush presidency, largely riding a wave of opposition to the Iraq War.

She ruled the House with an iron fist and kept her caucus largely in line, even as Republicans retook the House for the better part of a decade, starting in 2011, before the chamber swung back to the Democrats in 2019.

But the aging politician decided to step aside in the wake of her party’s loss of the House majority after the November elections.

Pelosi’s election-denying replacement lacks confidence of Democrat base

Enter one Hakeem Jeffries, a Congressman from the urban center of New York City, who has a history of election denialism.

Jeffries was elected to be the new leader to succeed Pelosi in the lower House of Congress, but he’s got some obstacles to overcome.

According to a CBS/YouGov poll, only 35% of Democrats hold a favorable view of Jeffries.

Among the broader electorate, just 18% view Jeffries favorable while 41% of respondents have never heard of him or his attacks on democracy.

Of concern to Jeffries and Democrats is that his numbers lag far behind those of Pelosi’s among their coalition.

According to Breitbart, “Among independents, Jeffries held a 16-point favorability. That number only increased to 22 percent among black voters and 20 percent among Hispanics. Only 19 percent of respondents younger than 30 viewed Jeffries favorably. Among American women, his rating sank to 14 percent. In contrast, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-CA) favorably was marked at 61 percent among Democrats. Among black respondents, she held a 44 percent approval rating. Twenty-five percent of Hispanics viewed her favorably. Overall, Pelosi’s favorability was 27 percent, nine points higher than Jeffries.’”

GOP has opportunity to define new Democrat foe

What all this boils down to is that Jeffries’ relative anonymity and weak favorables presents opportunities for Republicans to define him negatively and nationalize future campaigns against his kookiness, potentially exploiting his weaknesses and dividing the Democrat coalition.

In the 2010 and 2014 elections, as well as the 2022 Midterms (though to a lesser extent), Republicans were able to successfully use Pelosi as a rallying cry for everything that was wrong with Congress.

A similar strategy against Jeffries may well pay dividends in the future.

Jeffries is already providing plenty of ammunition, having a history of tweeting such things as “The more we learn about 2016 election the more ILLEGITIMATE it becomes. America deserves to know whether we have a FAKE President in the Oval Office.”

Democrats may have been crowing over the last week about the Republican contest for House Speaker but by all accounts that debate was healthy for the Republican Party and the Conservative movement.

And they may well find that their own leader will weigh down their own future election prospects.

Stay tuned to Blue State Blues for any updates to this ongoing story.