Pelosi re-elected to House Democratic
leadership post
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[December 01, 2016]
By Susan Cornwell
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. House of
Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi was re-elected to her
post on Wednesday, beating back a challenger who accused Democrats of
ignoring the working-class Americans who flocked to Republican Donald
Trump in elections this month.
Pelosi, 76, a Californian who has been in Congress for 30 years and led
the party in the House for 14 of them, defeated 43-year-old Tim Ryan, a
seven-term representative from the Rust Belt region of northeastern
Ohio. The vote, taken by secret ballot, was 134-63.
Ryan had brought his challenge complaining about the Democrats' track
record under Pelosi's guidance, noting Democrats have only been in the
majority in the House of Representatives for four of the past 18 years.
He said Wednesday that he had been "biting his tongue" until the Nov. 8
national election, when Trump won the White House with the support of
many working-class Americans, and Republicans kept control of the House
and Senate. Democrats gained only about a half-dozen seats in the House
of Representatives, when some had thought they would make double-digit
gains.
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Ryan said after the vote he was satisfied his concerns had at least been
heard by Democratic leaders, and there might be change. "If the message
of the Democrats now is about working class people ... if that's our
focus, we will right this ship," he said.
Pelosi also suggested there had been a lesson learned. "Never again will
we have an election where there’s any doubt in anyone's minds where the
Democrats are when it comes to America's working families," she told
reporters.
It was the biggest challenge to Pelosi's leadership since 2010, when
then-Representative Heath Shuler got just 43 votes.
Ryan's backers stressed they fear the party will be doomed to its
minority status if it continues to move away from working-class people,
traditionally part of the Democrats' base.
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![](../images/120116pics/news_z47.jpg)
House of Representatives Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi speaks to
reporters after she was re-elected to her post on Wednesday, despite
a challenge from Rust Belt congressman Tim Ryan who said the party
needed new leadership, on Capitol Hill in Washington, U.S., November
30, 2016. REUTERS/Kevin Lamarque
![](http://archives.lincolndailynews.com/2016/Dec/01/images/ads/current/christian_village_lda_CHRISTMAS_2016.png)
"We talk more about free-range chickens than we do working people on
the Democratic side sometimes," Representative Stephen Lynch of
Massachusetts said before the vote.
"We have to convince the American people, the American worker, that
we're in their corner. And Donald Trump did that. He took that away
from us," Lynch said.
But Representative Eliot Engel, a Pelosi supporter, said "you really
can't blame her" for the party's disappointing showing in November.
"It was a loss of support at the top and it trickled all the way
down," Engel said.
(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Editing by David Alexander and James
Dalgleish)
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