While most of Washington focuses on the future of House Democrats’ upper leadership rungs, their most competitive race so far actually sits at No. 6.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her top two lieutenants stay mum about their future plans, the battle to serve as vice chair of the House Democratic caucus next year is bursting into public view. Four contenders are actively jostling for what’s widely seen as a stepping stone to a more senior position in their party.

“It's like becoming the third vice president of the rotary club,” Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) said of the interest in the lower-ranking position. “You know you're going to be president one day.”

The four vice chair hopefuls so far are Reps. Joyce Beatty (D-Ohio), Madeleine Dean (D-Pa.), Debbie Dingell (D-Mich.), and Ted Lieu (D-Calif.). Between them, nearly every corner of the caucus is represented: the Congressional Black Caucus, progressives, the New Democrat Coalition and the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus.

Most of the quartet have laid the groundwork for months, if not years, to snag a public-facing position that assists in messaging and managing the whims of a hugely diverse caucus. And all of them have stepped up their outreach to fellow Democrats in recent weeks, according to interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers and aides.

With months to go until a leadership election that likely won’t take place until after Thanksgiving, most of those Democrats said it’s nearly impossible to name a front-runner.

The focus on the No. 6 position isn’t entirely unexpected, as the vice chairmanship is one of the few positions with a known vacancy. The post’s current occupant, Rep. Pete Aguilar (D-Calif.), is planning to run for a higher position within leadership if and when there are vacancies next year. (Its previous occupant, Massachusetts Rep. Katherine Clark, is also expected to run for a higher perch.)

“The top three is very messy. It's just that it's not formalized because no one actually knows,” Lieu said, when asked about the state of leadership races, both higher-ranking and more under-the-radar.

Lieu’s pitch to colleagues has centered around his work on the caucus' messaging arm, known as the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee, and his involvement with the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, where he is the whip. A prolific fundraiser, he served in a high-profile role as a manager for Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial and is a vocal critic of the former president on social media.

“I'm getting very strong support from the ethnic caucuses, from California. That's half the caucus already,” Lieu said in an interview.

The Air Force veteran is vying against Dingell, another co-chair of House Democrats’ messaging arm who also won that caucus-wide position after the 2018 midterms.

Dingell — first elected to fill the seat of her late husband, the late House Dean Rep. John Dingell — is a critical ally of the current leadership slate and is particularly active on trade, the auto industry and prescription drugs. She’s also used her position to try to steer her party, whether it was assessing Trump’s chances in 2016 or this year's debacle over the president’s Covid funding request.

“I’m one of the few people who’s not afraid to speak up,” Dingell said, describing her pitch for the vice chairmanship. If elected, she said one of her priorities would be working to engage more members who now sit "in the middle of the caucus."

"We need to find a way to get everybody in the caucus a feel for being relevant," she said.

Dean, meanwhile, is the most junior member in the race. She too rose to prominence after Pelosi tapped her as an impeachment manager and helped argue the House’s second, post-Jan. 6 case against Trump — a role with emotional weight, since she was part of the so-called "gallery group" barricaded in the chamber when rioters breached the Capitol.

The former Pennsylvania state legislator argued that far more has happened in her four years in office than the typical second-term member: “These two Congresses have been so jam-packed, dynamic, incredibly important that I didn't think there would be any reason why I would have to wait in some sort of line.”

Representing a suburban Philadelphia district, Dean stressed the importance of her swing state in a potential vice chairmanship. But what qualifies her the most, she said, is being the youngest of seven children: “I know how to navigate a complicated family, which is what the caucus is.”

The most recent entrant is Beatty, who's led the Congressional Black Caucus for nearly two years. The Ohioan, who fended off a Justice Democrats-backed primary challenger in 2020, has pointedly sought to bridge ideological divides within the Black caucus, which includes some of the party's most senior members and its most progressive.

That included high-stakes negotiations on legislation such as last week’s pro-policing bills, as well as Biden’s massive infrastructure law last summer — on both occasions, Beatty's involvement helped end weeks of infighting within the caucus.

“I have a great track record of being supportive to those I work with, but also being representative of the greater population,” Beatty said, adding that she has not yet begun formally whipping votes for her leadership bid.

The field for vice chair isn’t necessarily set. Several Democrats predicted that other candidates could jump in after the Nov. 8 election — or that one or more of the candidates could decide to bow out and seek a different position after the dust settles from other higher-ranking races.

The current chair of the House Democratic Caucus, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), is term-limited in his position, and is expected to join the leadership shuffle if there are vacancies above, creating another opening for his job. So far, only one Democrat has publicly indicated he's eyeing that position: Rep. Joe Neguse (D-Colo.).

Besides Jeffries, Clark and Aguilar, two other Democrats have been making calls about potential openings in the top three leadership positions: Reps. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) and Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.). The continued uncertainty at the top of Democrats’ leadership chain, though, has kept most of that jockeying quiet.

While Pelosi had committed to departing her position after this term, she has said nothing lately on the subject, deflecting that she is focused on the midterms. And her top two deputies, Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) and Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.) have not ruled out another leadership run.

Several other Democrats are looking at lower-level caucus-wide races, but have not yet decided which ones. Those include Reps. David Cicilline (D-R.I.), Lauren Underwood (D-Ill.), Colin Allred (D-Texas), Dean Phillips (D-Minn.) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.).

Even the four lawmakers currently seeking the vice chair position have been careful not to let their campaigns get in the way of what they call the more important one: Keeping the House GOP from seizing the majority.

“I think everyone should stay singularly focused on making sure we protect the majority,” said Cicilline, who formerly served in House leadership. “We’re going to have lots of time to jockey for positions.”

As the pro-Trump House Freedom Caucus plots how to exert its influence on next year’s likely GOP majority, its members are poised to holster a potent political weapon: Challenging Kevin McCarthy.

With the California Republican still the uncontested frontrunner for speaker next year, his biggest potential threat — aside from a November collapse that leaves him with a threadbare majority — is a Freedom Caucus-backed rival. But interviews with more than a dozen members of the conservative group indicate they're not moving to coalesce against the GOP leader as they have in the past.

In short, the Freedom Caucus that blocked McCarthy’s path to the gavel seven years ago has evolved into a bloc that's willing to use its leverage to secure procedural demands, but not to blow up the race for speaker.

"I hope … we're not going to mount a challenge,” Freedom Caucus member Rep. Randy Weber (R-Texas) said in an interview. "This is the most organized we've ever been. So why would we change it?"

The group does plan to push for modifications that would empower them in a future Republican majority, including the power to force a speaker eviction vote — what’s known as the “motion to vacate the chair.” And there’s still time to change their minds on a direct McCarthy challenge.

Even so, should a Freedom Caucus lawmaker jump into the speaker race, some say the roughly 35-member group isn’t expected to rally behind whoever emerges — underscoring McCarthy’s strength within the conference.

One big reason for the shift is that Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), perhaps the group's most powerful figure, is now among McCarthy’s closest allies. Once a rival who harnessed his sway with the conference's right flank to challenge the Californian for minority leader in 2018, now Jordan is quick to say he’s excited for a McCarthy speakership.

Some Freedom Caucus members privately see Jordan as the only member whose clout could rally the entire group behind a McCarthy opponent. Other conservatives, when asked about the Freedom Caucus' disinterest in directly taking on McCarthy, simply pointed to a GOP unified behind him.

“I don't think there's anything newsworthy there,” said Rep. Dan Bishop (R-N.C.), a Jordan ally. “I often say it appears to me that Kevin has surpassing support among [the] conference to be speaker."

The burgeoning Freedom Caucus position on a 2023 speakership vote is trickling down to likely future members. A House GOP candidate who met with the group's lawmakers earlier this year summarized the Freedom Caucus recommendation as: Vote your conscience. If you support McCarthy, go ahead. If you don’t, that's also fine.

This GOP candidate, sharing candid views on condition of anonymity, expressed surprise at the Freedom Caucus' choose-your-own-adventure approach to the speakership vote.

Of course, the biggest caveat in conference dynamics remains the size of the GOP majority after the midterms. Until House Republicans see how many seats they pick up in November, it's difficult to definitively predict how they'll see McCarthy.

A smaller-than-expected gain — and particularly a shocking failure to take the House — would cause a firestorm over who was to blame. And McCarthy, at the top of the leadership food chain, would take the brunt of the finger-pointing.

“A lot depends on the actual numbers,” said Freedom Caucus member Rep. Morgan Griffith (R-Va.). “There are some people who prefer a different candidate, [but] they haven't really focused on or coalesced around anybody.”

Griffith said the group also recognizes that McCarthy has listened and shown more goodwill to the Freedom Caucus than any GOP leader since it launched in 2015. Should McCarthy stop hearing the group out, Griffith added, “that could change things.”

Notably, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) declined to address the topic when asked about challenging McCarthy. The occasionally tumultuous relationship between the minority leader and the MAGA firebrand has appeared to steady in recent months; last week, she attended McCarthy's GOP agenda rollout in Pennsylvania and sat happily behind his shoulder on stage.

The Freedom Caucus' coolness to a McCarthy challenger doesn't mean they're lacking demands.

Some in the group are even fully sidestepping questions about their support next year as they push for the conference to vote on a rules package before any leadership elections are held. That plan was first reported by the Washington Examiner, which also revealed other concessions the group is seeking: ending earmarks; diversifying the GOP steering committee typically stocked with leadership allies; and enacting a “majority of the majority” rule that states no legislation should come up without majority support within the conference.

Perhaps the key tenet of any Freedom Caucus-approved House rulebook is restoring the motion to vacate the chair — the very procedural maneuver used to oust one of McCarthy’s predecessors.

When asked about directly challenging McCarthy, Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) pivoted to that list.

“I can't speak to any of that,” Perry said of the leadership outlook, noting that the “Freedom Caucus is going to be a part of that. But … we're really focused on the rules package right now. And likely anybody that we would support for anybody in any position in leadership, we're going to want to discuss that in-depth and in a meaningful way.”

Reps. Bob Good (R-Va.) and David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) copied their group's chair in redirecting questions about a McCarthy challenge to their focus on the next Congress' rules package.

"There's almost a maturity that's come from the Freedom Caucus saying: Our job is to legislate,” said Schweikert.

Leadership, meanwhile, hasn’t tipped its hat on the rules matter.

Reps. Michael Cloud (R-Texas) and Chip Roy (R-Texas) asked McCarthy about it during last week's GOP conference meeting, according to a person familiar with the back-and-forth, and McCarthy responded that members should focus on getting through the runup to the midterms.

And Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) publicly echoed that message when asked about the Freedom Caucus’ rules push.

“You see this every two years. There is always a robust discussion about what the rules should be. Again, we can’t put the cart before the horse — we have to win a majority to have that ability to have that discussion,” Scalise told reporters last week. “We are well aware of some of the things they’ve proposed.”

That circumspect reply is especially valuable given Freedom Caucus members haven’t decided whether the motion to vacate the chair would be a deal-breaker to their support for leadership contenders. Should the group vote as a unit, it could force a close speakership election past the first ballot or even deadlock the contest outright.

Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) said there's “definitely some red lines — especially vacating the chair. That is a red line.” But she declined to say if the group would mount a bid against McCarthy, responding that “we'll see.”

While Boebert has publicly criticized McCarthy at various times, even suggesting Donald Trump should be speaker in the past, she has privately expressed more allegiance to the California Republican behind closed doors, according to two Republicans familiar with her remarks.

Good called the power to force a speakership eviction "a really important part of that rules package” but also avoided any rigid insistence.

“If everything else that I outlined was agreed to — again, I don't think we want to come and say: ‘oh, these are absolute,’” Good said. “These are not scripture.”