It Looks Like Nancy Pelosi Is Being Pushed Out of Congress by the Far Left

RedState 

If the scuttlebutt is correct, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi will finally be stepping down from Congress after the 2026 midterm elections. It's long been rumored that the octogenarian will be retiring, and potential successors have been building their brands and fundraising structures. Now NBC News is reporting that after Tuesday's elections, Pelosi will announce that she's not seeking re-election to her own seat, but there's more to it than the story Team Pelosi is spinning.

Since this is an extremely safe seat in the most liberal part of California (regardless of whether Prop 50 passes on Tuesday or whenever they finish counting ballots), conservatives should keep their celebrating to a minimum. Part of the reason that Pelosi is retiring is her age; she will be 86 on Election Day in 2026. But she's also being credibly challenged by two far-left figures who've already amassed followings and dollars: California state Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco) and Saikat Chakrabarti, a tech millionaire who founded Justice Democrats and served as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's (D-NY) chief of staff. The emergence of Wiener and Chakrabarti could pose a problem for Pelosi's succession plan: it's well known that she wants her daughter, Christine, a documentary filmmaker and Democrat activist, to essentially inherit her seat.

As RedState readers are aware, Wiener is the state legislator best known for passing pedophile-friendly, anti-parent legislation. 

Wiener announced his candidacy on October 22 via video and, of course, made it about "Trump and his MAGA extremists," saying:

"I'm running for Congress to defend San Francisco, our values, our people, and the Constitution of the United States with everything I have. I've stood up to violence and hate my entire life. Trump and his MAGA extremists don't scare me."

During AOC's first term in Congress, Chakrabarti stoked conflict between his boss and Pelosi, and Pelosi won that round, forcing Chakrabarti and Corbin Trent, AOC's then-comms director, out. Chakrabarti tweeted things like, "All these articles want to claim what a legislative mastermind Pelosi is, but I'm seeing way more strategic smarts from freshman members like @AOC, @IlhanMN , @RashidaTlaib and @AyannaPressley. Pelosi is just mad that she got outmaneuvered (again) by Republicans," and "Pelosi claims we can't focus on impeachment because it's a distraction from kitchen table issues. But I'd challenge you to find voters that can name a single thing House Democrats have done for their kitchen table this year. What is this legislative mastermind doing?" According to Politico, Chakrabarti deleted a series of tweets as part of a peace agreement between the Democrat caucus's "moderate and progressive factions."

But he hasn't forgotten his animus toward Pelosi, and he has the money and the infrastructure to do something about it. From Politico:

“I tried to do this as a staffer last time,” he says, a note of frustration in his voice. “It’s hard. It is the kind of thing where you need to be a member of Congress. And I’m thinking once we’re elected or some number of us are elected, you actually need a member of Congress who’s going to be organizing the group. Like what our political strategy is, which we honestly did not have in 2018 with the squad and all that.”

. . .

Money will not be an issue for Chakrabarti. He’s worth somewhere north of $100 million, having helped build the payment processor Stripe back in 2011, an experience he describes as “winning the start-up lottery.” He’s already put $700,000 into his own campaign. Chakrabarti can afford to spend much of his day organizing because he doesn’t need to worry about wooing donors.

Wiener seems a little salty that Chakrabarti has thrown his hat into the race, since Wiener has been angling to replace Pelosi for years, telling Politico:

“Saikat is doing smart things — for example, spending enormously on digital — to try to make up for having zero history or track record of working in the San Francisco community.”

Wiener has raised over $1,000,000 and was waiting to formally announce his candidacy until there was an official retirement announcement from Pelosi, but after he heard that Chakrabarti had over 800 people at an early campaign event, he decided to make things official.

Pelosi's team says she's only thinking about Tuesday's Prop 50 election in California. Her spokesman Ian Krager issued the following statement to NBC News:

“Speaker Pelosi is fully focused on her mission to win the Yes on 50 special election in California on Tuesday. She urges all Californians to join in that mission on the path to taking back the House for Democrats.”

And Pelosi herself told the San Francisco Examiner last month that any decision about whether to run again in 2026 would be made after the Prop 50 election. Pelosi really hasn't had much to do with the Yes on 50 special election; she's stood beside Gavin Newsom on occasion at his astroturfed events, but it's really Newsom's baby. But it's a convenient story to detract from the fact that the far left faction of the party is not giving up and refuses to allow Pelosi's safe Democrat seat to go to what they consider an establishment Democrat.