The speakers almost always have several years of experience. Potential speakers usually climb the ladder. Even Paul Ryan, a Republican from Wisconsin who was not the first to speak in 2015, was a member of the House of Commons since 1999.
From my point of view, there are two main reasons why a presidential candidate would not be suitable: he is hurting his party's electorate, or the president does not represent the party he or she represents. . I do not think any of those reasons apply to Pelosi when you look at the numbers.
It is true that the California Democrat is unpopular. In August, for example, a Fox News poll rated Pelosi's favorable rating at 29 percent, down from 54 percent. This is not very good. Of course, most congressional leaders have bad favourability ratings. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had a favorable score of 22% and an unfavorable score of 52% in the same poll. Kentucky Republican's favorable favorable score (favorable less unfavorable) was 5 points worse than that of Pelosi in this survey.
Interestingly, few Republicans now claim McConnell's replacement. It may be that Democrats have not been as effective as Republicans in using the leadership of the opposing party in Congress as a political attack. It may also be that Republicans understand that most people do not vote for Congress according to the identity of the leader.
Earlier this year, I examined the extent to which the popularity of congressional leaders predicted the results of the House. It turned out that there was little correlation between the approval or favorable rating of these leaders and the way people end up voting for the House.
Indeed, voters elect and reelect majorities in Congress, even when they do not like the person who would most likely be the Speaker of the House. We have seen this in 1994, 1998, 2014, and now in 2018. Similarly, there are years when speakers who are not so unpopular have their parties excluded (see 1994 and 2006).
Instead, people are much more likely to base their votes for the Congress on what they think of the president. A CNN poll earlier this year found that only 34 percent of voters said Pelosi was an important factor in their mid-term votes, while 68 percent said President Donald Trump was. Unsurprisingly, the president's net popularity rating in exit polls (-9 points) was almost perfectly in line with the Republican deficit in the popular vote in the House (currently 8 points).
Think of it in another way. If Pelosi were such an electoral albatross, the Democrats would not be heading for their biggest net gain in the House since Watergate.
The other main argument against a speaker is that he does not represent the caucus he represents.
Ideologically, Pelosi is perfect for his party. The Democratic Party is moving further to the left. A record percentage of Democrats identify as Liberals, according to Gallup. In this year's exit survey,
a record percentage of all voters identified as liberals.
Pelosi is very liberal. According to Voteview, which measures ideology using roll-call votes, Pelosi was more liberal than more than 80 percent of the members of the Democratic House of this Congress. She was more liberal than 93% of the members of the House of this Congress.
The freedom of Pelosi could explain why those who want it dislocated are mainly at the center of the electorate. This includes incoming freshmen like Abigail Spanberger, who comes from a Virginia district, won by more than 6 points, and Conor Lamb, of Pennsylvania, who was the most moderate member of the House of Representatives of this Congress .
On the other hand, more liberal MPs in the House generally support Pelosi. The new Alexandria member Ocasio-Cortez of New York said that she "would support the most progressive candidate for the leadership of the party and, for the moment, Nancy Pelosi, in terms of candidacy."
Perhaps less talked about is that Pelosi is a woman in a party in which women play a bigger and bigger role. One could argue that a woman should run a party whose constituents are predominantly women. In exit polls, 58 percent of Democratic Party voters were women.
Democratic voters also said that they wanted women to represent them. Women were named at a record pace in the Democratic primaries. According to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, 89 women will serve in the Democratic caucus next year. This is a record, and 28 more than are currently used.
Without Pelosi, it is possible that there is no woman in a position of power representing the party. Representative Marcia Fudge of Ohio, who was playing with a challenge against Pelosi, would have mitigated this problem. Fudge, however, decided not to challenge Pelosi.
Fudge would have been an interesting option for another reason: she is African-American. This would have given Democrats the opportunity to reflect the diversity of their party in the selection of their leaders. Non-white voters are much more likely to be Democrats than Republicans, although a larger proportion of Democratic voters are white than non-white.
The bottom line, however, is that it is always logical for Democrats to elect Pelosi as president. Its strengths outweigh its weaknesses, from an electoral and representative point of view. This is probably why no one has come forward to challenge her yet.
