By Richard Cowan
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as the powerful Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, said on Thursday that she will not run for re-election to Congress in 2026, ending a four-decade career of a progressive Democratic icon often vilified by the right.
The 85-year-old congresswoman, first elected in 1987, made her announcement two days after voters in California on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved "Proposition 50," a state redistricting effort aimed
at flipping five House seats to Democrats in next year's midterm elections.
"I will not be seeking re-election to Congress. With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service," Pelosi said in a video posted on X.
California's embrace of "Proposition 50" was in response to a similar move by Texas to boost Republicans' chances. The political strategy was spearheaded by California's Democratic Governor Gavin Newsom, but was right in Pelosi's wheelhouse.
She has been at the forefront in battling for control of the House and especially taking on Republican Donald Trump, who feuded with her in his first presidential term from 2017-2020.
Pelosi's retirement follows years of younger Democrats chafing at elders hanging onto their positions of power and not doing enough to cultivate future leaders. Nowhere was that more on display than the summer of 2024 when an 81-year old Democratic President Joe Biden limped through his debate with Trump, weeks before dropping out of the race in part due to pressure from fellow Democrats including Pelosi.
FEUDS WITH TRUMP
Pelosi was asked by Reuters during a 2022 roundtable interview whether she had any career regrets, including the deepening rancor and divisions plaguing the House.
She said she wished she had won more elections to deny Republicans power and "to make sure that a creature like Donald Trump never became president of the United States."
Indeed, Pelosi tried to remove Trump from power twice, with House impeachments in late 2019 and early 2021, only to see Senate Republicans acquit him.
So deep was the animosity between Pelosi and Trump that it spilled onto the president's 2020 State of the Union address, when he refused to shake her hand upon his arrival in the House chamber.
She, in turn, stood up at the conclusion of his speech and with a dramatic flair ripped in half a printed copy of the speech, later saying she did so because every page contained a "lie."
Republicans in 2021 expressed outrage at Pelosi when she rejected their recommendations of two staunch Trump defenders to serve on a special committee investigating Trump's role in the January 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol.
"Republicans will not be party to their sham process and will instead pursue our own investigation of the facts," said then-House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy.
While Pelosi accepted partisan fighting as a part of the job, the growing anger in U.S. politics took a toll on her family in 2022, when a right-wing conspiracy theorist broke into her San Francisco home and struck her husband Paul Pelosi over the head with a hammer. He later recovered.
HAD ALREADY RELINQUISHED SPEAKER'S GAVEL
With her exit from the national stage at the end of 2026, when her 20th term expires, the House and Democrats nationwide will be losing one of its highest-profile liberals at a time of party upheaval.
But her move was not expected to scramble the party's leadership races following the November 2026 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to recapture control of the 435-member House from Republicans.
Three years ago, Pelosi announced she was retiring from Democratic leadership, which included two four-year stints as speaker, from 2007-2011 and 2019-2023.
Relinquishing a job that is second in line to the presidency, after the vice president, opened the way for a younger generation of Democrats to take control after years of trying to climb the ladder to power she sat atop.
Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York has assumed Pelosi's former role as House Democratic leader, while Senator Chuck Schumer, 74, continues as the party leader in that chamber.
While there are tensions between Jeffries, 55, and more liberal Democrats, he is expected to be the likely choice for speaker if the party does capture control of the House.
"Nancy Pelosi is an iconic, legendary, transformational figure who has done so many things over so many years to make life better for so many people," Jeffries said at a press conference on Monday when asked about Pelosi's 2026 intentions.
During her tenure, Pelosi gained a reputation as a defender of human rights and an early advocate of gay rights at a time when AIDS swept through the world and especially her hometown of San Francisco in the 1980s and beyond.
It was her work in helping then-President Barack Obama win enactment of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, known as "Obamacare," that she sees as her greatest accomplishment.
Healthcare, she told reporters in 2022, "became our big issue and that will be the biggest thing that I've ever done in Congress."
With her looming exit from Washington, Congress is losing an historic figure who many saw as governing with an iron fist as she rushed, at near breakneck speed in her trademark stiletto shoes, from meeting to meeting in the Capitol.
Democrats will also lose a prolific campaign fundraiser.
"I had to raise like a million dollars a day - well at least five days a week," she once told reporters.
It will also lose a Californian who proudly eschewed the state's reputation for healthy eating. Pelosi insisted that she ate a hot dog with mustard and relish every day for lunch, plenty of Ghirardelli chocolates and a breakfast that generally included ice cream.
(Reporting by Richard Cowan; Additional reporting by Katharine Jackson; Editing by Scott Malone and Michael Perry)
