What happens to a Democratic Party without Nancy Pelosi?

When Congress convenes after next year’s midterm elections, it will mark an auspicious milestone of sorts for the legislative body: For the first time in nearly four decades, California will not be represented by Nancy Pelosi, the longtime San Francisco lawmaker who led the House for years as its first woman speaker, after she announced on Thursday that this will be her last term in Congress. For Democrats, Pelosi’s departure is unambiguously the end of an era. But it also signals the potential start of something new for a party still finding its footing in the second Trump administration.

What did the commentators say?

While Pelosi faced criticism over the years for her policies and tactics, “nobody doubted her resolution, her vote-counting skills, her sheer political chops, and — most of all — her toughness in tight spots,” said New York magazine. Although her “gradual relinquishment” of political power made Pelosi a “regular symbol of Democratic gerontocracy,” not even those who hoped she would “gracefully retire” expected her successors atop the “Democratic power pyramid” would “equal her leadership qualities.” In retiring, the “Californian who proudly eschewed the state’s reputation for healthy eating” also leaves Democrats without a “prolific campaign fundraiser” who once claimed she had to “raise like a million dollars a day,” said Reuters. An “unmatched force” in politics, she has pulled in “more than $1 billion over her career” for Democrats, said The Associated Press.

Pelosi’s retirement announcement comes as she was expected to face a “tougher-than-expected group of primary challengers” in next year’s midterms, said Politico. Her upcoming departure “sets off a cascade of campaign maneuvering” both in terms of her San Francisco-area congressional replacement and the “political futures of her senior-ranking congressional allies.” After stepping down from the speakership in 2022, Pelosi has become a “ringleader” of some of her party’s “recent watershed moments of generational change,” including former President Joe Biden’s decision to withdraw from the 2024 race, Axios said. But of the more than 60 democratic representatives over the age of 69, she is one of “just a half dozen” leaving without public plans to “seek higher office.”

The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

In retiring, the lawmaker is “paving a pathway” for a “new generation of Democrats to take the stage in California,” said SF Gate. Pelosi is also joined by “many of the state’s most familiar names” in politics who are “stepping aside” lately. “The race to succeed Pelosi will blow open the door for other talented and ambitious candidates,” said Bay Area Democratic consultant Brian Brokaw to the Gate. No matter who that person is, they “will have massive shoes to fill.”

What next?

Pelosi’s skills have been put toward “convincing swing-district Democrats” to “cast unpopular votes to advance the ideological cause,” said the National Review. She also kept the “hardened progressives from making the perfect the enemy of the good.” Conservatives, therefore, may look back on her legacy as a “simultaneously radical but also a moderating force” fondly compared with what may come next. Lawmakers who come after Pelosi should look to her “remarkable career” for “lessons in how to effectively wield power” as well as in “pitfalls to avoid,” said Slate. Chief among them, that even the “appearance of using the office for personal gain” degrades public trust the same way overstaying your time in office “loses the party power.”

Even before Pelosi had made her announcement Thursday, the “battle” to fill her emptying seat “started heating up” weeks earlier, with two candidates already having thrown their hats into the ring, said The New York Times. State Sen. Scott Wiener, a “moderate and a business-friendly Democrat” (at least “by San Francisco standards”), has “long had his eyes” on Pelosi’s seat. Weiner is joined by Saikat Chakrabarti, former campaign manager for Rep. Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), who has “devoted his life to progressive politics for much of the last decade.” The field is expected to begin crowding now that Pelosi has made her plans official.