By Dave Workman
Former House Speaker and career Democrat member of Congress Nancy Pelosi announced Thursday she will not seek re-election in 2026, and plans to retire in January 2027.
A perennial anti-gunner who supported the ban on so-called “assault weapons” and framed her gun ban advocacy as “gun violence prevention,” Pelosi was the first female House speaker. She infuriated conservatives when she ripped up her copy of President Donald Trump’s State of the Union speech once year, and on another occasion during the 2020 pandemic when she talked about her refrigerator full of designer ice cream.
According to CNN, Pelosi released a video in which she declared, “I have truly loved serving as your voice in Congress, and I have always honored the song of St. Francis, ‘Lord make an instrument of thy peace,’ the anthem of our city. That is why I want you, my fellow San Franciscans, to be the first to know. I will not be seeking reelection to Congress.”
While the establishment media appears ready to allow Pelosi to launch a swan song marking the end of a Capitol Hill career spanning nearly four decades, the Second Amendment community may have a different perspective. Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, told TGM via text, “It is great to see any ‘Assault politician’ leave office. Unfortunately, in her district, she will be replaced by another one who I hope is even more low caliber.”
Politico is reporting that Pelosi “had come under increasing pressure to step aside amid her party’s widening generational divide.
“Now 85,” Politico said, “she defied political observers in 2023 when she ran for a 20th congressional term despite Democrats losing the House and her speakership the year before. But next year, she faced a tougher-than-expected group of primary challengers.”
First elected to Congress via a special 1987 election, Pelosi managed to keep her seat representing the San Francisco area ever since. She may have been satisfied to leave following Tuesday’s election which re-drew congressional district maps in California to assure Democrat dominance in the 2026 mid-term elections.
Her departure will ignite a stampede among Democrats hoping to replace her on next year’s ballot.
Another Politico observation carries a serious hint: “And in Washington, Pelosi’s coming departure will prompt questions about the political futures of her senior-ranking congressional allies.”
Pelosi’s Democrat party has been increasingly tilting farther left, and the election of Zohran Memdani as New York’s next mayor—an acknowledged “socialist Democrat”—plus the visible feuding between Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer—a longtime Pelosi ally—clearly signals the Young Turks are preparing to displace the Old Guard in the next election cycle.
Workman is editor-in-chief at TheGunMag.com
