Congress
Democrats on the verge of pushing out another committee leader
Momentum is building among Democrats to oust their ailing leader on the House Agriculture Committee, part of the party’s generational shake-up on Capitol Hill in the wake of their demoralizing losses in November.
Rep. David Scott (D-Ga.) — the committee’s current ranking member — faces a challenge from fellow Democrats Reps. Jim Costa (Calif.) and Angie Craig (D-Minn.) for the post in the next Congress. And, according to more than two dozen House Democratic lawmakers and aides granted anonymity to discuss the matter, Scott is poised to lose the vote if he doesn’t step aside before then.
“The race is against Costa and Craig at this point,” said one House Democratic lawmaker. “Scott is done.”
If he loses, Scott would be the third septuagenarian House Democrat push out of a committee leadership role in the new Congress — along with Raul Grijalva (D-Ariz.) and Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.), who ended bids to continue as ranking members on the House Natural Resources and House Judiciary Committees following challenges from younger Democrats. And it would be a sign of just how strongly the party wants to turn the page on an older generation of leaders, particularly after losing an election many blame on 82-year President Joe Biden’s initial decision to run for a second term.
“It’s in the air. People want heads to roll on our side,” a House Democratic aide said.
At this point, Scott can only survive if the powerful Steering Committee recommends him for the post again when the panel meets next Monday. Such a move would essentially block Costa and Craig from consideration. But House Democrats, including several on the Steering panel, don’t expect that to happen.
Costa has strong ties to a bloc of senior Democrats on the Steering panel who have been pushing for him. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has also been telling members she is supporting Costa in the race and trying to advocate for him, according to three people familiar with the conversations. Craig meanwhile is a frontline Democrat who has a strong relationship with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team. Jeffries, according to Democratic lawmakers, hasn’t discouraged her or any other Democrat from challenging Scott and additional senior panel leaders.
Spokespeople for Jeffries and Pelosi declined to comment.
Costa, a Congressional Hispanic Caucus member, also secured the endorsement of the influential caucus Tuesday, according to two people familiar with the closed-door meeting.
Separate discussions are also underway among some members who are searching for a way for the Steering Committee to refrain from making any recommendation on the Agriculture panel race — which would effectively greenlight Scott’s ouster without the panel having to overtly move against him.
Scott, 79, has faced a number of behind-the-scenes attempts to remove him as the Agriculture Committee’s leading Democrat in recent years, as Blue Light News has reported. He became the first Black chair of the Agriculture Committee in 2021, and then stayed on as ranking member in 2023. But a growing group of fellow Democrats have complained to party leaders that he is no longer able to effectively lead the committee, which faces critical negotiations on a $1.5 trillion farm bill in the next Congress.
Spokespeople for Scott did not respond to an inquiry. But Rep. Sanford Bishop (D-Ga.), who still supports Scott, said his fellow Georgia Democrat indicated in a recent conversation that he was staying in the Agriculture panel race.
Scott missed two weeks of votes last month to receive treatment for back problems, and currently relies on a wheelchair to get around the Capitol. And he has shed so much personal staff in recent years that his 26-year-old chief of staff, who was recently promoted from legislative assistant, is one of the few people left in his office to navigate the fallout as members dig in to oust remove Scott from his leadership role.
Scott won his post with the support of then-Speaker Pelosi and the powerful Congressional Black Caucus, but those alliances are now crumbling.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, who himself represents a new generation of Democratic leadership, has notpublicly backed Scott as strongly in recent monthas Pelosi once did. Jeffries and his leadership team also made the rare move last year to start personally attending several meetings with Scott and his agriculture panel Democrats after members continued to raise alarms about Scott.
In private conversations with rank-and-file members, Jeffries and his team have taken concerns about Scott seriously, according to three Democratic lawmakers familiar with the conversations.
The CBC is navigating its own generational divide on the matter and has so far stayed silent on the challenges to Scott’s leadership in the next Congress, despite strongly pushing back on an effort to replace him in 2022.
“I don’t think he has the capacity,” said one younger House Democrat who is a CBC member, who was granted anonymity to candidly discuss the matter. “I’m leaning towards Angie.”
Asked if younger members within the Black Caucus are more willing to oust Scott compared to the older guard who’ve long backed the Georgia Democrat, the young CBC member responded: “Absolutely.”
But in an incredibly striking move, even some older Black Caucus members say they’re still weighing their options.
“I haven’t made up my mind,” said Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-Miss.), the top Democrat on the Homeland Security panel. “But I do want someone who…can carry the Democratic message far and wide…We need the strongest voice.”
Thompson headed the farm bill task force that Jeffries created in 2023, effectively removing a major piece of Scott’s workload as ranking member. Democrats pleaded with Thompson and senior Democrats for him to take over the Agriculture panel from Scott, but Thompson resisted their efforts.
Scott has raised eyebrows by not showing up to several candidate forums to make his case members. Thompson said it was his understanding that Scott isn’t attending the Black Caucus member forum Wednesday.
“I think that’s a mistake,” Thompson said. “I think anyone running has to make their case as to why they’re there. It’s part of the process.”
“The first inclination of course is to support him,” said Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.), the top Democrat on the Foreign Affairs Committee. “However, I’m also talking to members of the committee, etc. to see where they are.”
“Any member that’s not feeling well, I have concerns about their health, and obviously he would be one of them,” Meeks added, when asked about other members’ concerns regarding Scott.
On Monday, Scott’s team scheduled a meeting with him and House Agriculture Democrats for Wednesday (right before the CBC candidate forum Scott is expected to skip) to provide an update on the ongoing farm bill extension talks as negotiators are close to a deal, according to two Democrats familiar with the plans. Scott’s panel staff have dug into hammering out a complex farm bill extension agreement in a way that’s made fellow lawmakers believe the Georgia Democrat will try to hang onto the role until the very end. He also hasn’t made any indication to panel Democrats that he plans to step aside and told Blue Light News just off the House floor last week that he was in fact not dropping out of the ranking member race.
Scott also skipped making his case before the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is chaired by House Agriculture member Greg Casar (D-Texas), and a separate closed-door candidate forum on Tuesday for the New Democrat Coalition, a center-left caucus of about 100 Democrats, of which he’s a member.
House Democrats’ campaign arm is expanding its target list just three weeks ahead of Election Day, going on the air for the first time in four more districts with coordinated ad buys with the candidates.
The move, part of $13 million in coordinated ads launching this week across 39 districts and first shared with Blue Light News, is the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s largest reach of investments this cycle as Republicans are working to defend a slew of redder seats in the final stretch.
The new districts include a toss-up race in Florida’s newly redrawn 22nd District, which Trump would have won by 10 points in 2024, as well as for Democrats’ uphill fight to defend Maine’s 2nd District, which President Donald Trump carried by nine points and where Democratic Rep. Jared Golden is retiring.
They’re also launching coordinated ads in New Jersey’s swingy 7th District, squarely within New York City’s expensive media market, where Democrats are working to unseat GOP Rep. Tom Kean Jr.
The coordinated ad buys also include Texas’s redrawn 35th District, where Democrat Johnny Garcia is running neck and neck with Republican Carlos De La Cruz in a suburban San Antonio district Republicans drew to win that Trump would have carried by 10 points.
The DCCC’s move comes as President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc.-aligned super PAC and a leading House GOP super PAC are planning to ditch spending in a group of House races in the coming days, as they race to shore up other House seats and salvage the Senate GOP majority.
“As Republicans pull out of media markets and cede that they are no longer competitive in multiple districts, the DCCC is continuing to go on the offensive,” DCCC National Political Director Brooke Butler said.
The NRCC has been up with ads in the four districts for weeks.
“While Democrats are just now scraping together the cash to bail out their radical socialists in critical battleground districts, House Republicans have been dominating the airwaves in those same districts and dozens more for weeks,” NRCC spokesperson Mike Marinella said. “The DCCC is desperately playing catch-up where Republicans have already lapped them.”
The DCCC didn’t share the exact size of the specific coordinated ad buys, only saying they were six-figure commitments.
Former Rep. Mary Peltola raked in $17 million over the last three months, her campaign shared first with Blue Light News, a sizable haul for the Democratic challenger in one of the biggest Senate battlegrounds.
It’s Peltola’s largest quarterly fundraising total in her bid to oust GOP Sen. Dan Sullivan. Her campaign also said it’s a record third-quarter sum for a Senate candidate in Alaska.
“Alaskans are sick and tired of DC politicians making life more expensive for everyone while they keep lining their own pockets, and they know it’s time for a change,” Peltola said in a statement thanking her supporters.
That total includes nearly $3 million in Peltola raised in July, before Alaska’s all-party primary in August, which was previously reported to the Federal Election Commission. Peltola’s campaign did not release her cash on hand for the quarter that ended Oct. 1.
Sullivan’s campaign has not yet released his third-quarter numbers. Sullivan had just under $7.3 million in cash on hand as of July 29, while Peltola had $4.6 million at that point.
Alaska has emerged as a core battleground this cycle as both parties reorient around redder states while Georgia and North Carolina tilt toward Democrats. Recent polls show a tight race.
Republicans are racing to shore up Sullivan in the four-way, ranked-choice general election in which the senator is also facing a same-name challenger in retired teacher Dan J. Sullivan. Some in the party fear he could siphon votes from the incumbent.
President Donald Trump is heading to Alaska for a rally later Tuesday in Wasilla that Sullivan is slated to attend, the senator’s campaign confirmed. Vice President JD Vance swung through the state last week.
Peltola’s fundraising prowess has helped her hold her own on the airwaves. Republicans hold a slim spending advantage on the TV ad reservations for the final three weeks of the campaign, with both parties posting over $9 million in reservations, per tracker AdImpact.
Republicans’ dreams of a productive lame-duck session are dimming.
Members returning to Washington post-election will have a mere 24 legislative days to get through a considerable list of must-pass bills and possibly messy internal leadership fights. That’s if they can overcome a potential transition of power on Capitol Hill and a foul national mood.
Lawmakers’ must-do list includes: an extension of government funding past Dec. 11 and the annual Pentagon policy bill. Major legislation to reauthorize farm, transportation and surveillance programs are also on deck.
Then there are pending bipartisan bills overhauling energy permitting and the college sports industry that many members are itching to get done.
And finally, leaders had deferred some GOP priorities — such as another party-line reconciliation bill or debt-limit increase through the end of President Donald Trump’s term.
All of the measures face their own potential political minefields individually, as well as a number of obstacles across the board:
— ATTENDANCE: There will be little incentive for lawmakers who just lost their seats — “free-range chickens,” some call them — to grind out legislative wins, if they come back at all.
“The question becomes: Who shows up for work after the elections?” Rep. Austin Scott said in an interview. “Attendance is an issue right now.”
— NEW LEVERAGE: If Democrats win control of either chamber, they’ll likely seek greater influence on legislation to push back on Trump’s actions.
For example, Democrats are fuming over the Trump administration’s recent decision to block roughly $1 billion in congressionally approved funding, which could complicate any deal on spending legislation. They’ve also blocked the annual Pentagon policy bill amid a standoff over the Iran war; and they may push for more concessions on the permitting deal.
“The lame duck will be quite different if we win the Senate,” Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said in a recent interview.
— GOP DISPUTES: While some Republicans believe that losing a chamber would jump-start the reconciliation process, others privately believe the exact opposite would happen, with incentives waning for exiting lawmakers, according to three GOP aides granted anonymity to speak candidly.
Other GOP senators, like Sen. Cynthia Lummis, are skeptical of a debt-limit increase.
A Democratic flip of the House could also spark a potentially chaotic cascade of GOP leadership elections (more on that below).
Sen. John Kennedy speculated Congress’ agenda would all come down to the vibes of the GOP conference when they returned.
“You have no idea what the mood is going to be,” Kennedy said.
What else we’re watching:
— JOHNSON SCRAMBLES LEADERSHIP OUTLOOK: Republicans are reassessing the dynamics of potential leadership races after Speaker Mike Johnson‘s comments Monday that he would run for minority leader if the GOP loses the House — just days after he floated leaving Congress altogether in that scenario. Many Republicans had predicted Johnson would step aside with a House flip, likely setting off a race between Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan for the top GOP spot. If Johnson stays put, his success may depend on the severity of the party’s loss and if Trump weighs in for a certain candidate. “I hope he’s smarter than that,” one House Republican said of Johnson’s consideration of the minority leader role. “It would end very badly and cause unnecessary damage to the conference.”
— DEMS GEAR UP ON TRADE OVERSIGHT — Democrats on the House Ways and Means, Senate Finance and other panels say Trump’s trade deals were corrupt, and they’re already lining up targets to probe. The party knows it can’t repeal Trump’s tariffs as long as he’s in the White House, but if they win control of Congress, they plan to haul in top administration officials and possibly executives to explain how Trump picked his targets in his trade war — and if others got a pass through suspected quid pro quos.
Jordain Carney, Daniel Desrochers and Oliver Ward contributed to this report.
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