A severely weakened House Speaker Nancy Pelosi won re-election on Sunday with only 216 votes, less than a majority of 218 in the U.S. House of Representatives.
After voting concluded according to C-SPAN’s count, Pelosi had 216 votes and an emboldened House minority leader Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) secured 209 votes. Two members, both Democrats, voted for somebody else and three members—also Democrats—voted present.
The fact that Pelosi could not even get a majority of members in the U.S. House of Representatives to vote for her—since the House has 435 voting members, a majority is 218—is a sign of how much weaker she is since the 2020 congressional elections in November saw massive losses for House Democrats.
Some of the members who voted “present,” such as Rep. Abigail Spanberger (D-VA), framed their vote as against Pelosi.
