House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) revealed on Tuesday that she would seek a 19th term in the US House of Representatives representing the San Francisco area in the November elections.
The Democratic congresswoman made the announcement in a video posted to her official Twitter account on Tuesday recounting the accomplishments Democrats had made in recent years and what political goals remain.
“While we have made progress, much more needs to be done to improve people’s lives. This election is crucial: nothing less is at stake than our democracy,” Pelosi said.
“But we don’t agonize, we organize,” she said, misquoting murdered 19th century labor leader Joe Hill. “I am running for re-election to Congress to deliver for the people and defend democracy.”
Pelosi will be 82 when she appears on the ballot in California’s 12th District in November, although it won’t make her the eldest lawmaker in Congress now, or historically, by any means. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is 88 years old, as are Sens. Don Young (R-AK) and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA).
Although she grew up in Baltimore, Maryland’s Little Italy neighborhood, Pelosi moved to California in the mid-1970s and used Democratic Party connections from her father, who also served as a congressman and as Baltimore’s mayor, to get into politics there, as well.
She became a member of the Democratic National Committee and headed California’s Democratic Party until 1983. She won her congressional seat in 1987 as the chosen successor of Rep. Sala Burton.
Pelosi has been House Speaker twice, from 2007 until 2011 and from 2019 until the present, serving as the minority leader of the House in the interim, when it was controlled by the Republican Party. Democrats have taken bets on whether or not she’d seek another term and if she did, if she would want the speaker’s chair, which is third in the presidential line of succession after the US president and vice president.
“If we’re in the minority,” one Democratic lawmaker told The Hill earlier this month, “I can’t imagine her wanting to do it.” According to the paper, House Democratic Caucus chairman Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) is viewed internally as her most likely successor.
