Nancy Pelosi predicts Democrats will retake US House in 2026 midterms | Nancy Pelosi
Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker of the House, has confidently predicted that Democrats will recapture the majority of the US House of Representatives in the 2026 midterm elections, and she hopes her colleagues in the party will take back congressional power that Republicans nearly ceded to Donald Trump.
On ABC News’ This Week on Sunday, Democratic New York congressman Hakeem Jeffries was asked if he had any doubts about whether Trump would hold the speaker’s gavel after the election in the middle of Pelosi’s second term as speaker. in question: “None.”
“Hakeem Jeffries is ready,” the 20-term California congressman said in an interview with This Week co-host Jonathan Karl. “He speaks eloquently, he is respected by the members, he is a unifier.”
Moreover, Pelosi told Karl that when Democrats “win back” the House, they should take back congressional powers that she claimed were mostly handed over to Trump by the Republican-led legislature.
“Right now, Republicans in Congress have dissolved Congress,” said Pelosi, who was speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011 and from 2019 to 2023. Overall, Pelosi added: “They’re just doing what the president insists they do. This will end.”
“As soon as I get the gavel, this is over.”
Pelosi is not alone in her prediction. Republicans are poised for defeat in the 2026 midterm elections, with Trump’s approval rating falling to 36% and disapproval rising to 60% in a November Gallup poll, the Guardian reported on Saturday.
Besides the obvious unpopularity of the president, there is significant history showing that the party that holds the White House often suffers losses in midterm elections.
Several Republican senators, including Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, Thom Tillis of North Carolina, Joni Ernst of Iowa and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama, have announced they will not seek re-election in the midterm elections. And more than two dozen House Republicans have indicated they have no intention of trying to keep their seats, leading some to wonder whether all those officeholders have abandoned what they fear is a sinking ship.
Pelosi announced in November that she would retire at the end of her final term in early 2027. The 85-year-old actress cited age as a key factor in her decision, coming to the end of a career in which she became the first woman to serve as speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives after joining Congress to represent San Francisco in 1988.
However, he told ABC that he sees returning the House speaker’s gavel to a Democrat as one of his last unfinished business.
“The American people are generally good people, and I want to take us back to a place where the administration and policy understand that,” Pelosi told Karl. “What’s next for me? We’re trying to move the discussion to a place that believes in the goodness of the American people and gives them hope.”
