US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat from California, speaks within the House Chamber on the US Capitol in Washington, DC, on Thursday, Nov. 17, 2022.
Ting Shen | Bloomberg | Getty Images
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday she’s going to not seek reelection to her congressional leadership role, ending a two-decade streak as the highest House Democrat.
Pelosi, speaking on the House floor, said she’s going to remain a member of Congress and serve out the term to which she was just elected.
The announcement got here lower than a day after news outlets projected that Democrats would narrowly lose their House majority to Republicans following the midterm elections.
Pelosi, 82, has kept her future plans under wraps within the aftermath of the midterms, when Democrats exceeded expectations up and down the ballot. Republicans, who anticipated that a “red wave” would deliver them sweeping majorities in Congress, will as a substitute take a skinny lead within the House, per NBC News estimates.
Pelosi has also said that a recent attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, by a hammer-wielding home intruder would affect her decision on whether to stay in leadership.
Current House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., is taken into account the highest candidate to develop into speaker in the subsequent Congress. On Tuesday, McCarthy won a celebration vote to develop into the GOP nominee for speaker, though he secured fewer votes than the 218 he’ll need when the total House casts its leadership votes in early January.
Elected to Congress in 1987, Pelosi became the highest-ranking woman in congressional history in 2002, when she was elected House minority whip within the wake of that 12 months’s midterms. She became House minority leader in 2003, and rose to Speaker of the House after Democrats won back the bulk in 2006.
In her two stints as speaker, Pelosi presided over a laundry list of major political milestones and crises, in addition to two impeachment proceedings against then-President Donald Trump.
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