Democrats break ranks on key House vote as party tensions flare
‘Ruthless’ podcast co-host Josh Holmes analyzes Reps. Jared Golden and Marie Gluesenkamp Perez breaking from House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries on a procedural rule vote and discusses Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed’s meeting with lawmakers in Washington ahead of the election.
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., is harshly dismissing a fellow Democrat who publicly undermined his quest to win the majority in Congress — on the left-wing leader’s own home turf.
Jeffries hit back at Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, in a statement to Fox News Digital on Tuesday after Golden endorsed Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., a moderate Republican, for re-election in November.
“Mike Lawler is a partisan hack and Trump sycophant who Cait Conley will defeat in November. In desperation, he is peddling an 11th-hour endorsement from a retiring congressmember who represents an out-of-town district more than 400 miles away,” Jeffries said.
“This smoke-and-mirrors ploy will do nothing to change the outcome of the race. The election will be decided by the people of Westchester and the lower Hudson Valley.”
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House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., speaks during a press conference on Capitol Hill on Nov. 3, 2025, in Washington, D.C. (Roberto Schmidt/Getty Images)
Jeffries claimed Lawler had “never shown bipartisan courage when it matters” while lauding his Democrat opponent as a “combat veteran and patriot.”
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“Mike Lawler can try to run from his extremist record. We will never let him hide,” he said.
But Golden, who has broken from Jeffries multiple times in the past, argued Lawler was among the most bipartisan members of Congress.
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“I know how bipartisan Mike Lawler really is. I know something about what that takes. I held the most challenging district of any Democrat in the country by earning the trust of Democrats, independents, and Republicans alike,” Golden wrote.
“Lawler holds one of just three Republican seats in the country that Kamala Harris carried in 2024. Representing districts like ours forces you to work for people who disagree with you, and it teaches you that those people are not your enemies. They are your neighbors.”
Rep. Jared Golden, D-Maine, attends a news conference in the Capitol Visitor Center on July 17, 2025. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc. via Getty Images)
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He pointed out that the nonpartisan Lugar Bipartisanship Index ranked Lawler the fourth-most bipartisan member of Congress in its most recent analysis.
“I am leaving Congress in January by my own choice, but I have not given up on the institution, and voters should not either. The Congress we get is the one we elect, and the country needs fewer members who treat the job as a stage and more who treat it as work. In New York’s Hudson Valley this fall, that is the choice on the ballot,” Golden wrote.
Lawler thanked Golden for the endorsement in his own public statement.
“While we are from different parties and different states, Jared and I have worked during our time together in the House to find common ground on issues that matter both to us and our constituents,” he wrote on X. “We share a firm belief that what’s best for the people should come before one’s party, and that if more members on both sides of the aisle took that approach more often, the country would be better off for it.”
Lawler is facing long odds of winning a third term in Congress, with most projections favoring Democrats in his district in the New York City suburbs.
But Lawler has defied political gravity before, including most recently in November 2024 when his victory split the ticket with ex-Vice President Kamala Harris.
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Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., takes the stage on the second day of the 2026 Republican National Convention at the American Airlines Center on Sept. 10, 2026, in Dallas. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images)
Golden, who is retiring at the end of this year, is known for breaking from his party on a variety of issues. He was one of the only Democrats to praise President Donald Trump’s tariff efforts.
He also recently made headlines for publicly defying Jeffries by voting with Republicans on a procedural measure called a “rule vote” alongside fellow moderate Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez, D-Wash.
While Republican lawmakers have weaponized rule votes in recent years to extract promises from House GOP leaders, it was almost unheard of for Democrats to defy their leaders like that on the other side of the aisle.
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It was especially stunning to see Golden and Perez do so twice within one month — with Jeffries attacking the move as a “breach of trust” the first time.