Why Nancy Pelosi May Have Trouble Remaining Speaker of the House -- Where Did Her Votes Go?
By Shipwreckedcrew | Nov 11, 2020 5:20 PM ET
Earlier today my RedState colleague Nick Arama reported that House GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy is speculating that Nancy Pelosi may no longer have the votes in the House Democrat caucus to remaining Speaker of the House.
A few days ago, when the late-deciding House races started to go against the Democrats, I wrote this story about the possible implications coming out of the House Democrat Caucus conference call where fingers of blame were being pointed over the losses that were suffered by various incumbents who had faced difficult races.
The news has not improved for Pelosi since I wrote my earlier story — in fact, it has gotten worse in that the Democrats have now lost every close race called so far. It now looks like she has lost — or will lose — 3 Democrat seats in California, her power base. With growing unhappiness on the extreme left-wing of her caucus, the math might end up working against her in the coming vote of the House Caucus on who to nominate for the Speaker’s Chair.
If the remaining races end up as they currently appear on the NTY website, the Democrat’s will lose a total of 7 seats, and the new numbers in the next Congress will be 222 – 213.
Remember from my previous article, I wrote this:
There were 205 Democrats in the 2002 House when the Minority Leader position opened with Gephart’s retirement — it would take 103 votes to claim the spot.
Pelosi used the pure brute force of the size of the California delegation — along with other western states — to go into the contest with more than 60 votes already lined up. Hoyer, being from Maryland, simply could not compete even with the backing of the East Coast and New England Democrat delegations in his corner. Pelosi prevailed to become the Minority Leader over Hoyer who had been ahead of her in line. This was the first time a California House Member became Minority Leader, and she later became Speaker when the Democrats regained the House Majority. During those years Pelosi was a “fire hose†of campaign funds throughout the Democrat caucus, and no meaningful challenge has ever been raised against her.
more
https://redstate.com/shipwreckedcrew/2020/11/11/why-nancy-pelosi-may-have-trouble-remainining-spearker-of-the-house-where-did-her-votes-go-n278166
