Normally, any deal that grips Congress like this comes with a big win for someone — the party in power claims a “W,” and representatives go back home and brag about the bacon they brought home.Not this one. Pelosi managed to keep her party from falling apart at a crucial moment, and that’s about all.

Josh Gottheimer had been in the political wilderness for 10 days before he was finally summoned by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to cut a deal. The de facto leader of a rebellious group of party moderates had signaled for weeks that he had the votes to upend Pelosi’s carefully laid legislative plans and wasn’t going to go quietly this time. Gottheimer and eight allies indicated, privately and then very publicly, that they wanted an immediate vote on the Senate’s infrastructure bill and would tank the budget if they didn’t get their way.

While Gottheimer and his group celebrate the concession they got on infrastructure, they face a bigger question: whether they expended too much political capital over a calendar fight, when a much bigger debate over the size and scope of the party’s social spending package is yet to come this fall.

While Gottheimer and his group celebrate the concession they got on infrastructure, they face a bigger question: whether they expended too much political capital over a calendar fight, when a much bigger debate over the size and scope of the party’s social spending package is yet to come this fall.

Moderates walked away from the standoff Tuesday declaring victory, with a promise to be included in the drafting of the $3.5 trillion social spending package as well as a date certain for an infrastructure vote. Pelosi and her allies, meanwhile, argue that she has not wavered from her previous strategy.

Progressives, who were largely silent amid the moderates’ maneuver in the moment, said afterward that Pelosi had simply reiterated her earlier plans to attempt to pass both massive bills by the end of September. And they said their nearly 100-member caucus would only back the Senate infrastructure deal after passing the broader party-line spending bill. “I don’t consider them concessions,” Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said of the demands granted to the centrists. “The fact that they’re gonna end up supporting what they said they wouldn’t without actually getting what they wanted, I think sets them up for failure in negotiations in the future,” she added.

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