Slim majority of Democrats in new poll say Pelosi should retain Speakership

A narrow majority of Democrats said in a new poll that they believe Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) should retain the position when Congress begins its new session after the first of the year. 

The Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday morning found 53 percent of Democrats supported Pelosi for Speaker while a third indicated the party should find someone else to spearhead its agenda. 

More than half of all respondents, Democrats, Republicans and independents, said Democrats should find a new leader. 

On Nov. 18, Pelosi was nominated by her caucus to serve as Speaker again. House rules dictate a formal vote be taken on the Speakership and she must earn a majority of the votes to serve in the role. 

“The theme, I think, of what we do next has to be about justice,” Pelosi, the first woman to ever serve as Speaker of the House, told her Democratic colleagues in accepting the nomination last month. 

President-elect Joe Biden’s selections of Democratic House members has thinned Pelosi’s majority in recent weeks and removed room for error in seeking to pass legislation and make deals with Republicans. 

Some more progressive members of the Democratic Party have also questioned Pelosi’s leadership and that of Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.).  

“I do think that we need new leadership in the Democratic Party … the internal dynamics of the House has made it such that there’s very little option for succession,” said Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) last week. “It’s easy for someone to say, ‘Oh well, you know, why don’t you run?’ but the House is extraordinarily complex, and I’m not ready. It can’t be me. I know that I couldn’t do that job.”

When asked during an interview if Pelosi and Schumer “need to go,” Ocasio-Cortez replied: “I mean, I think so.”

The new survey found fewer than half of Republican voters indicated Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) should remain as House minority leader, with 28 percent indicating they prefer to see the House GOP choose new leadership. 

The poll of 1,995 registered voters, conducted Dec. 18-20, has a top-line margin of error of 2 percentage points, Morning Consult said, while responses from Democrats and Republicans carry 3- and 4-point margins of error, respectively.