Nancy Pelosi secures Democratic backing as Speaker after running unopposed but will need majority on House floor in January to get fourth term
- House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was re-elected as the leader of the House Democrats on Wednesday
- The Democratic caucus held virtual elections due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis
- Pelosi ran for the position unopposed
- She’ll need to secure a majority on the House floor when the new Congress is sworn-in in January
- This will be the fourth time Pelosi has held the speakership, making history in 2007 when she became the nation’s first female speaker of the House
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was re-elected as the leader of the Democrats on Wednesday.
The Democratic caucus held virtual elections due to the ongoing coronavirus crisis – and Pelosi ran unopposed.
She’ll need to secure a majority on the House floor after the new Congress is sworn-in in January to make her speakership official.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi secured Democratic backing Wednesday to continue her tenure as speaker during the next Congress, which starts in January
Pelosi, photographed Friday on Capitol Hill, will need a floor vote in January to fully become speaker, but it’s expected to be anticlimactic as Democrats hold a majority in the House
‘Congratulations to @SpeakerPelosi, once again elected by House Democrats to be our fearless leader and nominee for Speaker of the House for the 117th Congress!’ a tweet from the House Democrats’ account read.
It used the hashtags ‘DownWithNDP’ for Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi and ‘ForThePeople,’ the name for the Democrats’ agenda.
Democrats hold a majority, and so that vote is expected to be anticlimactic.
This will be her fourth term serving as speaker of the House.
She made history in 2007, becoming the country’s first female speaker, and then was succeeded by John Boehner in 2011, when the Democrats lost the majority after the 2010 midterm elections.
She led the House Democrats during the years they were in the minority and took back the speaker’s gavel in 2019, when Democrats retook the majority.
There was some question, then, of whether she should stay in charge – and several new lawmakers from purple districts voted against her.
Pelosi took flak after the 2020 election, too, after her caucus lost seats – instead of gaining them, like top Democrats had expected.
On a post-election call with members, which was live-tweeted by members of the press, Pelosi pushed back when one moderate member, Rep. Abigail Spanberger, called the election a ‘failure.’
‘We need to be pretty clear,’ the Virginia Democrat said, according to Politico. ‘It was a failure. It was not a success. We lost incredible members of Congress.’
‘No one should say “defund the police” ever again,’ Spanberger continued. ‘Nobody should be talking about socialism.’
She warned the Democrats ‘will get f***ing torn apart’ in 2022 if that messaging continues.
The phrase ‘defund the police’ became a call on the activist left, but even some of the most progressive lawmakers didn’t back it.
Still, Republicans were able to paint Democrats as radicals in purple districts, causing them to lose.