While Nancy Pelosi may have maintained her grip on leadership in the House of Representatives, not all Democrats are on board with her continued reign – and they’re saying so.
Rep. Elissa Slotkin, of Michigan, says she won’t be supporting Pelosi’s speakership come January, explaining that while she respects her colleagues, she believes its time for “new leadership” and would like to see parts of the country other than New York and California represented.
“I will not be voting for Nancy Pelosi,” Slotkin told Politico. “I have no idea if people are gonna run against her, or who might run against her. And I will of course have this conversation directly with her. But I believe we need new leadership. I would love to see more Midwesterners, because if you look across the leadership. … I respect these people, but it’s New York and California.”
Slotkin is one of several congressional Democrats who’ve criticized their own party for supporting and even peddling slogans like “defund the police” along with a heavy push for socialism, saying those far-left agendas are creating obstacles for Democrats running in purple districts where radical progressivism isn’t a winning message among more moderate voters. On the flip side, Pelosi has also been branded too moderate by socialists in the party including N.Y. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who's accused Democrat congressional leadership of not being far enough left on issues like climate change and social justice.
Slotkin said people are confused about what Democrats actually believe.
“The brand of the national Democratic Party is mushy," Slotkin said. "People don’t know what we stand for, what we’re about. So, every two years when the new flavor of attack comes out, it’s easy to convince a portion of the population that those attacks are true, because they still don’t know our brand."
She also slammed “political correctness” as a political tripwire that makes people feel “looked down upon.”
“I remember, long before, literally, Donald Trump was even a twinkle in our eye, the way that people in my life here couldn’t stand political correctness," she said. "And I think [it’s] the same kind of sentiment. Because the political correctness is thinking you’re better than somebody else It’s correcting someone.
"Now, I happen to believe that we live in a different era, and that we have to be better than we were in previous eras,” she added. “But people do feel looked down upon.”