Pelosi May Lose Speaker of the House

Here’s an odd twist to report…

While the focus has been squarely on the Presidency and even the Senate, not much was expected out of the House.

Most thought the Democrats would hold on to their lead or even expand it a bit.

But that’s not what happened.

In fact, Republicans have flipped enough seats that Nancy Pelosi’s rein of terror, errrrrrrr, I mean time as Speaker, may be coming to an end.

Check this out:

Sounds to me like the American people are finally starting to wake up. Get Pelosi out of there. She is stale in that position and has left the American people holding the bag too many times. Go back to San Francisco and eat ice cream. https://t.co/W571u5K2ud #FoxNews

— tom (@tom57716243) November 5, 2020

House of cards? Pelosi to have a hard time becoming speaker as results trickle in, officials sayhttps://t.co/sI0qf5mVBe

— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 5, 2020

After last night, I’m no Fox News fan, but I will still report what they have to say….take a look:

Republican leaders, gloating at flipping several House seats, took jabs at Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., Wednesday for her shrinking majority and cast doubt on her ability to win enough votes to become House Speaker again.

I mean Nancy Pelosi doesn’t even have a majority where she can be elected speaker again,” Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, said Wednesday. “Whoever would have guessed that it’d be possible that Nancy Pelosi might not be the speaker?”

Democrats, backed by the consensus of election forecasters, went into Tuesday expecting to expand their majority in the House by flipping more districts that President Trump carried in 2016. Instead of picking up 10 or so new seats, Democrats lost races in places like Florida, Minnesota and Oklahoma and shrunk their overall numbers.

“I know the vote on the floor is difficult for Speaker. I know there was a number of people who did not vote for her last time,” McCarthy said Wednesday, alluding to Democratic defectors two years ago. “And as our numbers continue to grow, I think at the end of the day, no matter where we end up, we’ll be able to have a very big say, or even run the floor when it comes to policy.”

The House voice vote for speaker requires a majority. Each Republican typically yells out the name of their party leader — in this case McCarthy — and Democrats announce their vote for Pelosi. With the numbers on their side, the party in power winning the vote is almost a foregone conclusion.

Pelosi has struck deals and maneuvered to squash internal challenges to her leadership before. She overcame defectors in the past, including those from moderate Democrats who had pledged to vote against her if elected. In 2019, there were 15 Democrats who didn’t support her, but she could afford the losses with a bigger majority.

With ballots still being counted, it’s unclear how slim the Democrats’ majority will be heading into January.

Pelosi on Wednesday expressed confidence Joe Biden will be president once the votes are counted and said in a letter to Democratic colleagues that the House is ready to work with a Biden Administration on lowering healthcare costs, delivering bigger paychecks through green infrastructure and a cleaner government.

Pelosi didn’t directly address her losses in the letter aside from calling the election “challenging.”

Behind the scenes, Democrats were still coming to terms with the surprise setbacks and holding out hope that outstanding races would fall in their favor.

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They took aim at Republicans for trying to meddle in their leadership elections.

“House Republicans gloating about being in the minority is a great example of why they remain in the minority,” one senior aide told Fox News.

A second Democratic aide chalked up McCarthy’s comments to sour grapes and said Pelosi would prevail.

“The last person to know anything about the dynamics in our caucus is McCarthy, who today held a press conference to concede he wouldn’t be speaker yet again,” a senior Democratic aide told Fox News. “Members will stick with who brought them to the majority in the first place. The floor vote is a choice between Pelosi and McCarthy – an easy one for Democrats.”

I’m not giving up on Trump winning the Presidency, but for tonight this is a small sliver of good news!

I’ll take it!