Despite Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan vying for her leadership post, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi doesn’t plan on giving up her position in Congress anytime soon.
Pelosi, who has served as the highest-ranking Democrat in the House since 2003, is banking on President-elect Donald Trump’s job performance to lead a revival of the party, similar Democrats’ win in 2006, Politico reports. She assured she has no intentions of discussing her retirement anytime soon.
“I don’t intend on this phone call, or any conversation with members, to make myself a lame duck,” she told the publication. “What you have to do when you’re going into this is to go in with the most strength as possible. That’s just the way it is.”
The results of the 2016 election cycle caught the party off guard. Pollsters projected that Democrats would pick up somewhere between 15 to 20 seats — and yet, they only managed to unseat a handful of Republicans in addition to losing the White House. A number of Democrats are now pointing fingers at Pelosi, alleging the loss happened under her watch.
In Ryan’s formal announcement, he said the party needs a major change if it wants to stay relevant.
“What we are doing right now is not working. Under our current leadership, Democrats have been reduced to our smallest congressional minority since 1929,” he wrote.
After being encouraged by her colleagues, Pelosi pushed back leadership elections to Nov. 30 to give members more time to reflect on what went wrong for them Nov. 8.
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