The new House, controlled by Democrats, has been sworn in, and BOOM: Speaker Nancy Pelosi is back. Pelosi got 219 votes to Republican Kevin McCarthy’s 192, with 18 voting for other candidates and three voting present.
Pelosi had to overcome not just millions of dollars of Republican campaign ads using her to try to defeat Democratic candidates—because Republicans do love demonizing a powerful woman—but a poorly planned effort by conservative Democrats to defeat her (even though they had no alternative candidate). Nevertheless, she persisted in classic Pelosi fashion, reminding us why she’s one of the best legislative leaders Democrats have ever had. You do not want to take on Nancy Pelosi in a vote-whipping contest.
She became a new kind of icon when she walked out of the White House after Donald Trump embraced his ownership of the partial government shutdown she will immediately take action to end … or at least dump back in Republican laps. And we can expect her to do that in her usual unflinching, unflappable, expert way.
Here’s to Speaker Nancy Pelosi. Or, as Rep. Hakeem Jeffries said in formally nominating her: “We are down with NDP! Nancy D’Alesandro Pelosi!”
(Correction: The official tally gives Pelosi 220 votes, one more than C-SPAN’s running tally.)