US House Democrats reelect Nancy Pelosi as leader

WASHINGTON DC, USA – Nancy Pelosi on Wednesday, November 30, swept aside a challenge to her Democratic leadership in the US House of Representatives by a congressman from a blue-collar district who warned the party has lost touch with working-class Americans.

Pelosi, 76, retained her post as minority leader after an anxious closed-door vote in which she survived a challenge from congressman Tim Ryan of Youngstown, Ohio to extend her 13-year grip on party control in the chamber.

“Honored to be elected by my colleagues to serve as Democratic Leader. Let’s get to work,” Pelosi said on Twitter after winning the internal party vote 134 to 63.

Ryan, 43, had drawn support from Democrats discouraged by their party’s loss in the November 8 presidential election and their failure to gain back many seats in Congress.

A 7-term lawmaker, Ryan put himself forward as a new-generation leader of a party caucus that stands accused of having forgotten working-class voters, many of whom helped elect the anti-establishment billionaire Donald Trump to the White House.

Pelosi, who backed Democrat Hillary Clinton in the presidential race, remains a powerful figure, having made history in 2007 by becoming the first female speaker of the House.

But the tally of 63 defectors voting against her suggests her grip on the leadership is weakening. 

Ryan said he was “disappointed” by the result but felt optimistic that his message connected with colleagues.

“As Democrats, we need to talk about the economy. It’s the issue that unites us,” he said after the vote.

“I believe it in my heart that if we’re going to win as Democrats, we need to have an economic message that resonates in every corner of this country.”

Pelosi appeared to acknowledge the growing sense that her party has lost its connection to working men and women across large swathes of the country, where millions of struggling Democrats and undecided voters turned to Trump’s populist anti-establishment message.

It is vital for Democrats to prove, she said, that “never again will we have an election where there’s any doubt in anyone’s mind where the Democrats are when it comes to America’s working families.”

Republicans have long mocked Pelosi for pushing her party into what they call “irrelevance,” a message they repeated Wednesday.

“This year voters went to the polls and made a bold statement for change in Washington, but House Democrats just doubled down on the status quo,” Republican National Committee co-chair Sharon Day said in a statement.

‘Pocketbook issues’

Democratic Congresswoman Marcia Fudge, a Ryan supporter, said she believed Pelosi understood from the vote that “change has to come.”

“The message is that we are not going to continue to be a top-down-run caucus,” she told reporters. “It is our caucus, it’s not the leadership’s caucus.”

She also said it is imperative for Democratic lawmakers to engage more at ground-level with voters to earn back their trust and support, and to focus especially on economic issues, something she said the Clinton camp had forgotten.

In her largely Democratic Ohio district, she outpaced support for Clinton in the election, proof that her message connected more with working-class voters than the party’s barrage of messaging about rights, race and inclusion.

“I talk to people about pocketbook issues, not social issues,” Fudge said.

Pelosi defenders argue that she has been a bulwark against Republican efforts to privatize Medicare and shrink other entitlement programs that have serve as a safety net for millions of Americans.

House Democrat Elijah Cummings said Tim Ryan had “a very strong pitch” to lawmakers, many of whom wanted new blood at the top of their party, which has lost nearly 60 House seats to Republicans since President Barack Obama took office 8 years ago.

“But this is a time when we need, I think, someone who has been battle-tested,” he told reporters. 

“And there is no stronger battle-tested person than Nancy Pelosi.”

The congresswoman from San Francisco remains a tenacious vote-getter. She carried Obama’s Affordable Care Act across the finish line in the House and wrangled enough votes for the 2008 financial bailout when many Republicans balked. – Rappler.com