CHICAGO — Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has distinguished herself in myriad ways in her long political career, as a highly effective legislator, legendary power player and the first female Speaker in the nation’s history.
But as the California Democrat takes the stage Wednesday night to address the Democratic National Convention, she will stand out in another way: Perhaps no one, among the scores of speakers at this year’s celebration, has had a greater role in determining that it will be Vice President Harris, and not President Biden, who will top the ticket in November’s presidential contest.
It was Pelosi, after all, who worked furiously behind the scenes — and more subtly, in public — to press Biden to reassess his determination to remain the Democratic nominee following a disastrous debate performance against former President Trump in late June. That episode deflated the party base, discouraged donors and undermined the party’s chances of keeping control of the White House — and flipping the House — at the polls.
Pelosi’s allies said that it was a grueling decision for the former Speaker, who helped Biden enact some of the most consequential legislation in decades during the early years of his first term.
But any affection she had for the president clashed with the cold, hard reality that Biden was dragging down the ticket — and heightening the chances that Trump would win a second term — bringing out Pelosi’s killer instinct for victory and overcoming any reservations about burning bridges.
“Speaker Pelosi has always been about one thing, which is winning — in order to deliver good things to America, she’s about winning,” Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.) said. “She is the daughter of the mayor of Baltimore. She understands winning, and I think that’s why she took the very painful decision she took to recognize the fact that President Biden probably couldn’t win.”
Biden’s departure, to be sure, came after he faced pressure to bow out from a broad spectrum of allies, from Democratic lawmakers and deep-pocketed donors to labor leaders and Hollywood stars. And Pelosi has rejected the narrative that she was uniquely influential in pushing Biden off the ticket — an argument echoed by some of her allies on Capitol Hill.
“I don’t think she’s going to fall into the trap of speaking to this narrative out there that she was the godmother that pushed Joe Biden under the bus or anything like that,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) said in predicting Pelosi’s Wednesday message to the convention. “I don’t think she’s going to dignify that, either directly or indirectly.”
But if Pelosi didn’t exactly push Biden to the exit, she certainly helped pave his way there.
“President Biden needed to have the space, the room, to come to the realization that the party, at that moment, was not in a position to win this election,” Rep. Nydia Velázquez (D-N.Y.) said. “I had this conversation with some other members, including Nancy, that he needed to have the space to come to the conclusion whether or not it would be good for the country for him to stay, and then to put an end to his legacy. Because then he will not be remembered as — with all the achievements that he accomplished — one that brought the party down.”
The most notable instance of Pelosi’s “space-creating” strategy came during an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” program in early July, when she declined to endorse Biden explicitly. Instead, she said the president still had to decide if he’ll seek reelection — remarks that raised plenty of eyebrows since Biden had been adamant that the decision was already made: He was staying in the race.
Biden, at the time, was working furiously to shore up support on Capitol Hill, and was making strong progress. He won the backing of virtually everyone in the Congressional Black Caucus, an enormously powerful group within the broader Democratic caucus, and the wind appeared to be shifting in his direction.
Pelosi’s “Morning Joe” remarks halted that momentum in a near instant, sending a tacit signal to other lawmakers that public reservations about Biden’s candidacy were not taboo and turning the trickle of Democrats calling for the president to bow out into something more substantial.
Some lawmakers suggested Pelosi would not have had the same powers of persuasion if she had left Congress after ceding the top leadership spot at the start of last year. That decision was an unusual one, marking a break from leaders of the past, such as former Speakers John Boehner (R-Ohio) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), who exited Capitol Hill after stepping out of power. And it freed Pelosi to take steps she might not otherwise have taken while maintaining the respect of a caucus she led for the first two decades of the new millennium.
That unique mixture of liberation and gravitas helped empower Pelosi to play a key role in catalyzing Biden’s departure while insulating the party’s new House leaders — most notably House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) — from taking a more aggressive position that would have highlighted tensions among top Democrats.
“She’s been brilliant in her post-Speakership time, especially in the last month, with helping the president step aside. She took some of the brunt of the criticism, while some of the other Democratic leaders were able to act more behind the scenes,” Rep. Seth Moulton (D-Mass.) said. “I’m not sure how well-coordinated they were, but I think she did a great job for us and the party.”
“She stuck around for a reason,” Himes echoed. “She stuck around to help Hakeem Jeffries and, as she puts it, to fight Donald Trump.”
Pelosi’s extraordinary power play has, to be sure, strained personal relations with Biden and his team. Those tensions, her allies say, were the unfortunate fallout of a decision rooted in a higher purpose: preventing Republicans from winning a monopoly on power next year.
“Nancy cares deeply about the House of Representatives, and it really frightened her, the possibility or the idea, that we would not be in a position to win the House — or the White House,” Velázquez said. “Of course there’s going to be some feelings at the beginning. But I think that President Joe Biden is better than that. He is an incredible human being. So at this point I think that those feelings might be getting to a place where people will move forward for the sake of the country and democracy.
“It wasn’t easy, believe me,” she continued. “We all agonized.”
Rep. Lois Frankel (D-Fla.), another Pelosi ally, was with the former Speaker this week at a gathering of the Democratic Women’s Caucus. She predicted Pelosi will use the podium Wednesday night to praise Biden and thank him for his decades of service. But Frankel also suggested Pelosi is showing some signs of melancholy as Biden prepares to pass the torch to Harris.
“I think she’s feeling bad for Joe,” Frankel said.
Pelosi’s office declined to comment, citing a busy schedule in Chicago.
Biden, for his part, said he hasn’t spoken with the former Speaker, and dodged a question about lingering bad feelings.
“No I haven’t spoken to her,” Biden told reporters Monday night after his keynote speech at the convention. “No one made my decision but me. No one knew it was coming.”
Former Biden senior adviser Anita Dunn told CNN this week that “nobody wants to have a fight with Nancy Pelosi at this time.” Asked to respond, Pelosi brushed off the question, saying the “country is very happy.”
It’s unclear what message Pelosi will deliver Wednesday night. But allies are predicting it will touch on praise for Biden but focus much more heavily on the future of the party in the form of Harris.
“She will talk about his legacy and what he has done,” said Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-Conn.), a close Pelosi ally. “It is also about looking where the future of the country is going.
“That’s what she will speak to.”
Amid the shake-up of recent weeks, reports emerged to suggest there were tensions — rooted in decades of esoteric California politics — between the two Golden State heavyweights. Yet Pelosi has denied any rift and quickly endorsed Harris’s ascension, and others have dismissed the notion of any lingering discord.
“I’ve been in the room when some of those conversations happened that some people interpreted as [Pelosi] not being for Kamala. And I just think those were always bad reads,” said Huffman.
“I think she thinks the world of Kamala Harris, and I would predict that her speech is going to focus heavily on Kamala Harris.”