Josh Gottheimer believes his caucus of centrists is going to play a key role getting important bills passed in a narrowly divided House.

On a bitterly cold night 14 months ago, an obstreperous Democratic congressman from New Jersey was sitting in the Capitol hideaway of House Democrats’ heir apparent, talking about trying to do the impossible.

It was exactly one year before November’s midterms when Josh Gottheimer sat down with Hakeem Jeffries, and Democrats were confronting a bleak future. A Republican had just won the governor’s race in blue Virginia, and President Joe Biden’s agenda was all-but-dead despite Democrats’ trifecta of power in Washington. Jeffries — now minority leader and then caucus chair — was part of a Black Caucus bloc eager to score a legislative win by dislodging Biden’s $550 billion infrastructure bill from a months-long stalemate caused by Democratic infighting.

But Jeffries and his allies knew there weren’t enough Democratic votes to get the roads, rails and bridges plan through one of the tightest House majorities in history. They’d need at least a handful of Republican votes.