Democratic House members and members-elect are being bombarded with phone calls and emails urging them not to elect Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) as speaker, more than a dozen lawmakers and aides tell Axios.

Why it matters: The calls point to a fundamental disconnect between House Democrats — most of whom are likely to vote for Jeffries — and at least a portion of their grassroots base.

• An incoming House Democrat told Axios they are "getting inundated" and have received "about 150" calls since the election urging them not to vote for Jeffries.

• A senior House Democrat said they received "over 500" calls in the last two days, telling Axios they also got asked about it in-person at a Chamber of Commerce meeting in their district.

• "I think our numbers are higher" than 500, said another House Democrat. "It's our No. 1 issue, and it's not close." State of play:

Jeffries is in pole position to become speaker of the House after Democrats' landslide victory Tuesday, which is set to give them a massive majority of more than 250 seats.

• He has enjoyed the unanimous support of his caucus since becoming Democratic leader in 2022 and has never had a single House Democrat defect from him in a speaker vote.

• But the last speaker ballot was in January 2025, right before Democrats' grassroots base began railing against party leadership for what they perceived as insufficient resistance to the Trump administration.

• "Democrats in both chambers can't go back to business-as-usual politics. People want leadership that's ready to join the rest of us in this new era of politics," Ezra Levin, co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, said in a statement to Axios on Friday.

A Democratic chief of staff who said their office got "about 300" calls told Axios: "Lots of people are saying make Jamie Raskin speaker." • Raskin (D-Md.) has often been floated as a more progressive alternative to Jeffries, whose associations with pro-Israel groups and corporate PACs have long been a sore spot for the left.

• The top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, Raskin became a superstar among the party's grassroots after serving on the Jan. 6 committee.

• Raskin has expressed no interest in mounting a bid. A spokesperson for his office declined to comment.

The intrigue: A third House Democrat, who said they've "gotten between 300-400" calls, told Axios that actor Mark Ruffalo's post on calling for "a new speaker" has been driving much of the outreach.

• The post links to a Change.org petition that says Jeffries "is simply not the right choice." The petition had nearly 900,000 signatures as of Friday.

• The webpage includes a disclosure that the person who started the petition "receives compensation" as part of the "Change Ambassadors" program, which has raised eyebrows on Capitol Hill.

Reality check: Jeffries remains the overwhelming favorite to become speaker, House Democrats say. Nobody has offered even a hint of a whisper that they would be willing to run against him.

• A fourth House Democrat, who said their office has gotten around 50 calls urging them not to vote for Jeffries, told Axios the odds of anyone else becoming speaker are "none."

• A fifth — a senior progressive who said they, too, have gotten a lot of calls — told Axios there is a "0.0%" chance of Jeffries not securing the gavel.

• Democrats' leadership elections are scheduled for Nov. 18-19, and a floor vote for speaker will occur when the new Congress convenes on Jan. 3.

Between the lines: The volume of calls also varies, some members said, with progressives tending to receive more than moderates.

• "That's ridiculous. I haven't gotten one," Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) told Axios, adding, "Jeffries absolutely will be speaker."

• Said Rep. Sam Liccardo (D-Calif.): "I'll be supporting Hakeem Jeffries, and anybody talking about a challenger is just selling tickets to a circus with no tent." Yes, but:

Jeffries faces persistent skepticism and hesitance from incoming members — and not just from the progressive "Bloc." • Axios interviewed nearly a half-dozen incoming House Democrats in deeply red seats Thursday who declined to state a firm position one way or another on voting for him.

• Don Leonard, an Ohio Democrat who won a seat President Trump carried by 10 percentage points, told a local outlet that he will be "shopping for a new leader" if Jeffries doesn't commit to changing his pro-Israel position. The bottom line:

There was an expectation that the roughly dozen members of the "Bloc" would use a small majority to extract concessions from Jeffries.

• With a massive majority of dozens of seats, however, he has significantly more room to maneuver.

• His allies are confident they'll get enough Democrats to a "yes" to get him across the finish line — even if he doesn't get the unanimous vote he has enjoyed in the past.