House Democrats Want Nothing To Do With Nancy Pelosi

Today, Democrat Paul Davis announced his candidacy for Kansas’ 2nd District Congressional seat. As part of his campaign rollout, Davis made clear that he wanted nothing to do with embattled House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. According to the Kansas City Star, Davis said that he would not support Pelosi if elected:

“Democrat Paul Davis announced his entrance into the race for the 2nd District congressional seat Tuesday morning. If elected, he said, he does not plan to vote for Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the current House Democratic leader and former speaker of the U.S. House when Democrats last held the majority.”

Davis’ announcement follows a McClatchy report from earlier in August that surveyed 20 Democratic House candidates, and questioned them about whether they would support Pelosi if elected. Out of the 20 Democrats questioned, only a single candidate agreed to go on record supporting Pelosi:

“In a survey of 20 Democratic House candidates, only one – a former Senate staffer from Orange County, California – would state support for the congresswoman staying on as leader of the House Democratic Caucus. Of the rest, 18 declined to say if Pelosi should keep her job, while one, a political newcomer from a culturally conservative Ohio district, said he would vote for someone other than Pelosi. Their refusal is a remarkable development for an already embattled minority leader. But even more significant are the implications that their refusal carries for next year’s midterm elections.”

Nancy Pelosi’s tenure as leader of the House Democratic Caucus has seen that caucus shrivel to its smallest level in many decades. As the ranks of publicly discontented Democrats grow, Pelosi’s time atop her party might be nearing its end.