Pelosi will seek reelection as Democrats aim to win House majority in 2024
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she will run for reelection to another term in Congress in 2024.
WASHINGTON — Nancy Pelosi will seek another term, quelling rumors that she would retire from Congress nearly a year after leaving Democratic leadership.
Pelosi, 83, announced her bid for reelection Friday morning at a breakfast for political volunteers in San Francisco.
“In light of the values of San Francisco which we have always been proud to promote, I made the decision to seek reelection,” she said.
Pelosi’s announcement probably halts the efforts of others to take her San Francisco seat. Local politicos have long whispered that state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), Pelosi’s daughter Christine or David Campos, a former supervisor and chairman of the San Francisco Democratic Party, might run for the seat if Pelosi retired. Her desire to return to Washington, combined with her fundraising prowess and her popularity in her district, will push all but the boldest of her aspiring successors to put their ambitions on hold.
Still, many in D.C. would be grateful to have the former speaker return for another two years on Capitol Hill. Congressional Republicans love to use her as a bogeyman and fundraising foil, and congressional Democrats look to her for advice, institutional knowledge and fundraising help.
The former House speaker, saying she’s liberated, discusses her love of the Grateful Dead, Bob Dylan, the Rolling Stones and the healing power of music.
Pelosi, who first came to Washington in 1987, has served during seven presidential administrations. She began her ascent into Democratic leadership in the early 2000s, becoming speaker in 2007, shortly before President Obama’s first term. As speaker, she oversaw the passage of the Affordable Care Act, which overhauled the nation’s healthcare system. But the bill was unpopular among conservatives, and when Democrats suffered massive losses in the 2010 midterms, she lost the gavel.
Pelosi hoped to retire in 2016, but after Hillary Clinton lost the presidential election to Donald Trump, she decided to stay. Democrats reclaimed the majority in 2019 after Republicans suffered massive losses in Trump’s first midterm election. Afterward, she struck a deal with Democrats who had urged her to make way for a younger generation, promising to give up her leadership post by 2022.
She reclaimed the gavel and guided her party through Trump’s final two years in office, a time that included the longest-ever government shutdown, the Jan. 6 insurrection, two impeachments and efforts to shore up the economy after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. When President Biden took office in 2021, she shepherded his bipartisan law that aimed to renovate the nation’s aging infrastructure.
At the end of her current term in January, Pelosi would become the only modern House lawmaker to complete a full term in office after stepping down as the leader of a party.
“I love being a member of Congress,” she told The Times in March. “It’s actually fun.”
In an interview with The Times, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi says she’s ‘liberated,’ ‘free at last’ and writing a book.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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