Handicapping the House Oversight Food Fight

Jasmine Crockett robert Garcia
House Democrats know they will be judged by the route they take here: Do they elevate someone who knows how to run a serious and thorny investigation, or someone who can connect with the young voters that Democrats desperately need to win back? Photo: Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc/Getty Images
Leigh Ann Caldwell
June 23, 2025

After all the intraparty melodrama last month over whether Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would run again, four candidates remain in the race to become the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee—among the most high-profile jobs on the Hill, and one that will be essential to the party’s messaging heading into the midterms and, if Democrats retake the majority, any future investigations into President Trump. The full caucus will make their choice on Tuesday, and many in the party are hoping to separate the race from the existential conversations that have ensnared Democrats since Biden’s debate appearance, if not for years—that they’re too old and too woke, out of touch with working people, obsessed with divisive and often marginal social issues, neglectful of broader societal shifts, etcetera.