Progressives Need Not Apply: Hakeem Jeffries' New Primary Machine

When Mediocre Leadership Builds A Parallel Party

A couple of years before House Democrats made the historic— but predictable— error of naming Hakeem Jeffries their post-Pelosi leader in 2023, he had co-founded the Team Blue PAC with reactionary corporate Dems Josh Gottheimer (Blue Dog-NJ) and Terri Sewell (New Dem-AL). It was created to protect conservative incumbent Dems facing primary challenges from progressives in the kinds of safe Democratic seats not typically prioritized by the DCCC. The PAC was seen by some as an effort to counter the growing influence of progressive figures like AOC and other Squad members who had successfully challenged out-of-touch establishment Democrats in primaries. AOC had ousted Joe Crowley, Ayanna Pressley beat Mike Capuano, Cori Bush had ended Lacy Clay’s corrupt career and Jamaal Bowman beat AIPAC-Dem Eliot Engel.

There was no doubt that the Team Blue PAC was the House’s anti-progressive PAC, even though Jeffries used to pretend to be a progressive himself. The PAC never raised much— $299,261 for the 2022 cycle and $178,737 for the 2024 cycle. The PAC helped corrupt conservatives against progressives. In the incumbent vs incumbent battle between progressive Marie Newman vs corrupt conservative Sean Casten in Chicagoland, no one was surprise that Team Blue PAC sided with Casten.

Now that Jeffries controls the House Majority PAC, it “is actively recruiting candidates, vetting their backgrounds and even potentially running ads on their behalf in competitive primaries,” reported Alex Roarty. “That kind of direct interaction with candidates has traditionally been the provenance of the DCCC… House Majority PAC’s rise has, in the view of some Democrats, coincided with a step back in involvement in primaries from the committee. ‘You can’t help but notice there is a push and pull there,” said one Democratic strategist, granted anonymity to speak candidly about sensitive party dynamics. “One entity that used to be involved more aggressively in shaping these races, in shaping these primaries, retracts and pulls back a little bit. And one leans in more.’”

Last cycle, the DCCC vigorously worked on behalf of putrid, corrupt conservatives like Rudy Salas, who lost— for a second time— in a blue district. The DCCC and House Majority PAC have wasted $19 million on Salas’ two doomed races and may well support him again against young progressive Randy Villegas.

In the opening months of this election cycle, House Majority PAC has hired recruiters to scour the country looking for candidates with nonpolitical backgrounds who might not otherwise think to run for office, Smith said. The group also expanded its research operation to start vetting Democratic candidates who launch campaigns to make sure the party doesn’t face any unwelcome surprises late in the general election.

House Majority PAC has started doing more research on Republican incumbents— including some in ruby-red districts the party ignored in previous elections— and running ads targeting some GOP lawmakers as a signal to prospective candidates that the group plans to be involved in the race. It has also started polling in districts, in part to encourage Democrats to get into the race and in part to start figuring out which candidates would be the strongest in a general election.

Smith said House Majority PAC’s senior leadership has also met with dozens of potential and declared candidates to get a better sense of why they’re running, while swapping tips on political strategy. Smith, a veteran of Nancy Pelosi’s political operation who has been the PAC’s president since 2023, said the group was motivated to play a larger role in candidate recruitment after watching some Democratic candidates significantly over-perform the top of the party’s ticket last year, including Reps. Jared Golden [Blue Dog] of Maine and Pat Ryan [New Dem] of New York.

The super PAC now wants to find candidates who can match that type of performance in both marquee swing districts and also seats generally considered safe Republican territory, in hopes that a pro-Democratic electoral wave next year could turn once-uncompetitive races into top battlegrounds.

House Majority PAC and the DCCC have so far met with Matt Maasdam, who announced last week he would run for a House seat in Michigan, and Janelle Stelson, [Republican pretending to be a Democrat] who is considering another run in Pennsylvania, according to an official with the PAC. 

Whether House Majority PAC, which spent more than $250 million in the last election cycle, starts directly intervening in primaries to help their preferred candidates remains to be seen. That sort of intervention is always controversial, and prior efforts to do so haven’t always worked out well for the group. In 2022, the decision to back a House candidate in Oregon drew major backlash, and the PAC’s preferred candidate [a favor to Sam Bankman Fried for his support] ultimately lost in the primary.

Asked directly if the group would run TV ads in Democratic House primaries, Smith declined to rule out doing so.

“I think there is real value to competitive primaries to see who can rise to the top, who can raise the resources, who has a compelling story, who can actually relate to voters in an authentic way,” Smith said. “But we’re not taking anything off the table in terms of whatever we need to do to make sure that we win back to the House.”

This may be more a consolidation of power than just a shift in tactics. Under Pelosi, the House Majority PAC operated largely as a blunt general election instrument. Under Jeffries, it’s evolving into a tool for reshaping the party in his image: top-down, consultant-driven, corporate-friendly, and hostile to insurgent populism. What was once merely defensive— shielding incumbents from the left— is now going on offense, shaping primaries and recruiting candidates designed to suppress any future AOCs, Bowmans or Summer Lees before they can emerge. I’m afraid Jeffries is turned House Majority PAC into Team Blue PAC 2.0.

The rhetoric about “relatable” candidates and “authentic stories” might sound nice, but in practice it’s code for milquetoast centrists without political baggage— people who won’t talk about Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, taxing the ultra-rich or genocide in Gaza. These will be hand-picked candidates like Adam Frisch (CO), John Avlon (NY), Whitney Fox (FL), Monica Tranel (MT), Lanon Baccam (IA), Lucia Baez-Geller (FL) and Missy Smasal (VA)—meant to be blank slates for donor-class messaging, not grassroots champions who challenge entrenched power.

And if all that sounds familiar, it’s because it mirrors what AIPAC and other outside influence operations are doing as well— spending millions to destroy anyone who threatens the bipartisan war machine and economic status quo. What used to be rare coordination between super PACs and campaigns is now becoming a formalized strategy, where House Majority PAC acts as the velvet glove over the iron fist of the DCCC and its paymasters.

Meanwhile, progressives are still running the old-fashioned way— building local support, knocking on doors, and relying on small-dollar donations. But they’re increasingly running uphill, not just against Republicans or even establishment Democrats, but against a superstructure of dark money and cynical triangulation that sees them as the real threat and works to strangle progressive momentum in its crib. It’s less about winning than it is about control. Jeffries’ and his cronies’ “non-political” candidates are candidates without a conscience, a movement or a spine— no ties to labor, no ties to peace, no history of speaking truth to power— because that’s exactly what Jeffries and his donors fear most. Watch how many Squad-like challengers face mysteriously well-funded opponents with no discernible ideology except “electability.” And don’t lose sight of the fact that every dollar House Majority PAC spends trying to crush a progressive is a dollar they aren’t spending defeating a Republican. That’s what happens when the battle for the soul of the party is treated like a hostile corporate takeover.