When Hakeem Jeffries took the stage at an election-night celebration just south of the U.S. Capitol, well before midnight, the crowd was already chanting “Speaker Jeffries! Speaker Jeffries!” The Brooklyn Democrat emerged to the strains of “Unbelievable” by the Notorious B.I.G., then looked straight into the camera and declared, “America is back.” He paused, breaking into a broad grin as he savored the moment. 

After nearly two years in the minority, Jeffries is likely to become the first Black Speaker of the House, his party riding a stunning wave of victories that swept Republicans from power on Capitol Hill. “I learned very early on that a setback was nothing more than a setup for a comeback,” he told the jubilant crowd. “Today begins the great American comeback.” Minutes later, Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer had his own victory to celebrate a few blocks away: “We have five words for the American people: Relief is on the way,” he told campaign staff.

It was a coast-to-coast rout that exceeded the Democrats’ high expectations. As of Wednesday morning, the party had flipped at least 29 House seats, including victories in swing districts in Pennsylvania, Colorado, and Virginia, while Senate victories in deep red states like Texas, South Carolina, Kansas, and Iowa gave them control of the upper chamber. The results were a decisive rebuke of a President whose handling of the economy, rising prices, and the war with Iran had fueled widespread discontent, and who spent the closing days of the campaign musing about candidates’ anatomy and dismissing Americans’ concerns over their bottom line.

—Photo Illustration by TIME (Source image: Jim Watson—AFP/Getty Images)

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For the first time since Trump returned to Washington, Democrats will be empowered to do more than stomp and shout. They will be able to set the legislative agenda in both chambers of Congress, compel testimony from Administration officials, investigate allegations of corruption, force Republicans to take difficult votes, and block new Cabinet nominees or federal judges. Party leaders see an opportunity to turn the public's discontent with Trump into a sustained argument for returning Democrats to the White House in 2028. “This feels like 2018 on steroids,” says Representative Ted Lieu of California, vice chair of the House Democratic Caucus, referring to the election during Trump’s first term when Democrats won control of the House. The ensuing two years were marked by a lengthy government shutdown and two impeachments.

The next two should be similarly contentious. Interviews with more than two dozen Democratic leaders, strategists, and members of Congress in the days before the election revealed a party itching to fight on nearly every front the President has opened. “LAWYER UP,” Representative Robert Garcia of California, who is in line to chair the powerful Oversight Committee, posted on social media as returns came in. Democrats are preparing a legislative offensive aimed at reversing some of the Administration's most unpopular policies, including cuts to Medicaid, the expiration of federal health insurance subsidies, Trump's sweeping tariffs, and the war in Iran. They plan to advance proposals to lower the costs of housing and health care while pursuing aggressive investigations into the President's Administration and business interests. Some party officials are already looking beyond the next two years, hoping to develop a more expansive economic agenda that could define the next presidential campaign.

After two years in which Republican majorities on the Hill deferred to Trump, Democrats are poised to reassert Congress’s role as a coequal branch of government. They know much of their agenda stands little chance of becoming law; already, Trump has embraced the moniker “Mr. Veto.” But members believe they can make political gains even when they cannot achieve legislative victories. By advocating for policies that command broad public support, party leaders hope to expose divisions among Republicans, force Trump to defend unpopular decisions, and demonstrate what a government fully led by Democrats would prioritize. 

House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries said his party had retaken control of Congress as election results favored them across the US.Staffers cheer as results in favor of Democratic candies roll in during a midterm election night watch party with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries. —Tom Williams—CQ-Roll Call/Getty Images

But when the midterm victory laps conclude, the Democrats’ challenges will be waiting for them. Even leading up to their commanding win, surveys showed the party remained unpopular. Its leaders are divided over how far left to move, what kind of economic message will win back the voters who abandoned them in 2024, and how aggressively to confront Trump. Democrats are split on how seriously to pursue a third Trump impeachment, a path that many party leaders see as a political dead end. “If we make Donald Trump the center of our focus, we will lose this moment in history,” says Senator Cory Booker of New Jersey. “We need to deal with the American people’s problems.”

There’s also a risk that Democrats have raised expectations they cannot meet. After campaigning on promises to lower prices, restore government accountability, and rein in a President they portray as dangerously unconstrained, they now have to demonstrate their governance can make a tangible difference in Americans' lives. The temptation to interpret the election as a sweeping mandate could be especially perilous for a party whose recent victories have owed as much to dissatisfaction with Republicans as to enthusiasm for its own leadership. 

“I'm really worried that we're going to misread victory as an endorsement of us or America falling in love with Democrats,” says Representative Jim Himes of Connecticut, the ranking member of the Intelligence Committee. “We need to remember that we have been asked to audition for a role in which the party has failed.” The warning hangs over the plans Democrats are preparing to put into motion. The next two years in Washington are likely to be defined by confrontation and gridlock. Now Democrats have the task of convincing Americans that this is what victory looks like. 

In mid-September, House Democrats gathered in a basement conference room in the U.S. Capitol to discuss strategy. National polling predicted a blue wave and Democrats were giddy about the prospect of making gains across the country. But they had yet to settle on a message for the final weeks of the campaign. Members swapped tales from the campaign trail that revealed dueling frustrations among the electorate. In competitive districts, constituents were furious about soaring gasoline and diesel prices. In Democratic strongholds, voters were obsessed with corruption, expressing the belief that Trump and his inner circle appeared to be profiting off the presidency. 


Then Representative Jamie Raskin of Maryland spoke up, offering a formulation that crystallized the party’s closing argument. “We're talking about the same thing,” Raskin told colleagues. “Accountability and affordability are not a fork in the road for us politically. They are two sides of the same coin.” Candidates in swing districts began hammering the idea that corruption in the federal government and a cost-of-living crisis were intertwined. 

Their agenda will be guided by the same concept. Democrats are preparing a flurry of investigations into Trump and his allies, with the goal of exposing alleged abuses of power and putting the President's financial dealings under public scrutiny. The idea is to tie as many of these probes as possible to Americans’ economic stress. Joshua Miller, director of Congress Watch at Public Citizen, a progressive think tank, says members of his organization have been meeting with Democratic officials for months to discuss how to hold hearings Americans will see as meaningful, not merely performative. “This is the first step to actually auditioning for what a significant reform agenda would look like if Democrats were given unified control in 2029,” Miller says. “It’s also the first step to regaining the American people's trust.”


President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a midterm campaign rally in Dubuque, Iowa on Nov. 1. —Brendan Smialowski—AFP/Getty Images

In the Senate, the Judiciary Committee, expected to be chaired by Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, under Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, are preparing to play central roles in the investigative offensive. Their House counterparts on the Judiciary and Oversight committees are gearing up for an equally aggressive push. Raskin, a Maryland progressive and former constitutional law professor who led Trump’s second impeachment prosecution, is likely to become House Judiciary Chair, while Garcia is expected to take the helm of Oversight. Both committees have been hiring, recruiting several dozen additional lawyers and staff. 

According to staffers familiar with the committees’ plans, the committees intend to probe Trump’s cryptocurrency dealings; Truth Social’s sale of faster access to his market-moving posts, a service that could give paying trading firms an edge over other investors; the luxury presidential aircraft donated by the Qataris; and allegations that wealthy and well-connected donors and allies secured tariff exemptions or other government favors in exchange for contributions to Trump pet projects like the White House ballroom or Trump-aligned PACs. They’re also demanding records of Trump’s AI chatbot usage, citing a TIME report that the President consulted Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok before launching the January raid that captured Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro. 

Democrats are keen to scrutinize Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law, over alleged conflicts of interest (which Kushner has denied) stemming from his central role in Middle East peace negotiations and his investment firm’s ties to Gulf states. Democrats also want to investigate whether 1789 Capital, an investment firm where Donald Trump Jr. is a partner, profited from political connections or advanced knowledge of federal funding decisions affecting companies in its portfolio. Among them is Vulcan Elements, which secured a $620 million Pentagon loan months after 1789 invested. (1789 denies wrongdoing and says Trump Jr. does not participate in its investment decisions.) “You have endless amounts of grift coming out of the White House from the entire family,” Garcia alleges. “It’s like watching The Sopranos,” adds Raskin. (In a statement, White House spokesperson Davis Ingle said “there are no conflicts of interest” and insisted that “President Trump only acts in the best interests of the American public—which is why they overwhelmingly re-elected him to this office, despite years of lies and false accusations against him and his businesses.”)

Jared Kushner speaks at a Board of Peace High Level Briefing in New York City on Sep. 23. —Ryan Murphy—Getty Images

Looming over these investigations is the question of whether to try to impeach Trump for a third time. Jeffries, who declined an interview for this story, isn’t tipping his hand, saying only that Democrats “haven't ruled anything out.” But many Democrats are wary about another impeachment. Senator Adam Schiff of California, an impeachment manager in Trump’s first term, says his party needs to be clear-eyed about public sentiment. “We're going to need to see where the country is,” he says. But voter appetite alone would not set them up for success; Democrats know there would be little chance to obtain the two-thirds supermajority in the Senate required to convict and remove Trump from office.