House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi is getting a lot of airtime during the 2018 midterms.
Republicans have pointed to the wildly unpopular 78-year-old career politician in campaign ads for years as a prime example of all that’s wrong with Washington, and the 2018 midterms is no exception. But an increasing number of Democrats are also getting in on the action by painting their party’s leader as an out-of-touch elitist.
“We’ve been sold out by people like Nancy Pelosi, Mitch McConnell and the Washington insiders,” West Virginia Democrat Richard Ojeda, a Democrat running in Trump country, said in a new campaign ad.
Bloomberg reports:
In Indiana, Democrat Mel Hall “opposes Nancy Pelosi as speaker,” according to a spot aired in the strongly Republican 2nd District in and around South Bend. In Florida, Democratic lawyer David Shapiro linked his opponent, Republican incumbent Vern Buchanan, to Pelosi, saying in an ad that they both “have got to go.” Virginia Republican Dave Brat Monday mentioned the Democratic leader so many times while debating his opponent, Abigail Spanberger, that she was prompted to remind him, “You are running against me, not a Democrat in Pennsylvania and certainly not Nancy Pelosi.”
In total, more than five dozen Democratic candidates have called for new leadership if Democrats take control of the House on November 6.
Pelosi, meanwhile, has stated flatly she “will be speaker” of the House next year if Democrats gain the 23 seats they need to wrest control of the lower chamber from Republicans.
Tal Kopan, Washington correspondent for the San Francisco Chronicle, posted to Twitter about the future speaker’s comments during a meeting with the editorial board last week.
Pelosi scoffs at a question about her future in leadership to @sfchronicle editorial board.
“I don’t even think about it,” she says. “I believe I will be the speaker if we win.”— Tal Kopan (@TalKopan) October 10, 2018
“Pelosi scoffs at a question about her future in leadership to @sfchronicle editorial board. ‘I don’t even think about it,’ she says. ‘I believe I will be the speaker if we win,’” Kopan wrote.
It was at least the second time Pelosi has assured America she will reign supreme in the House next year. At an event in Texas last month, Showtime host Alex Wagner put the leadership question to Pelosi and she didn’t hesitate, The American Mirror reports.
“If the Democrats take the house,” Wagner said, “are you going to be the person with the gavel in your hand, and are you going to be the person that calls up Donald Trump to try to work with him?”
“Yes, I anticipate that I’ll be the person with the gavel in hand, but I haven’t asked anybody for a vote, in fact, I’ve told the candidates, ‘Do whatever you have to do, just win baby,’” Pelosi said, apparently encouraging Democrats to say whatever will get them elected.
“I do think that I’m in very good shape with my caucus,” she said.
It remains unclear whether the flood of new candidates attacking Pelosi will have much of an impact on her future, as many promising not to support her are trailing their Republican rivals. The number of candidates who have not staked a claim on Pelosi also still outnumber those who have, providing plenty of wiggle room for the self-proclaimed “master legislator” to regain the gavel in 2019.
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