Poll Reveals 56% of Democrats Don’t Want Pelosi as House Speaker

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Senior Democrat Nancy Pelosi recently declared that she is "100 percent" confident that she will be the next Speaker of the House, but a new poll reveals that most Dems don't want her in the leadership position.

According to a new Gallup poll, 56 percent, Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents said Pelosi (D-Calif.) should be replaced as their leader in the House, with only 39 percent supporting her resuming the role she held from 2007 to 2011.

Democrats were asked the question for Gallup's October 15-28 poll, conducted before the party won back the majority in the House of Representatives in the midterm elections.

Dozens of Democratic candidates, including many who have since won their elections last week, have pledged vote against Nancy Pelosi for Speaker when the party decides on its leader for the next Congress later this month.

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On "Fox & Friends First" Monday, Democratic strategist Howard Franklin said Pelosi is right to feel confident, because she has a long record of service in the House, and she has proven to be a prolific fundraiser.

"I do believe she's got a lot of reason to expect that even some of the people who have said less than positive things about her coming back into the role will ultimately vote to support her," Franklin said.

Republican strategist Matt Braynard agreed that Pelosi should be confident about being re-elected to the speakership, pointing out that the winning party "tends to dance with the leader that [brought] them."

"It's really unfortunate because her negative ratings are twice what the president's are.

"She's a millstone around the neck of the Democratic Party," Braynard said.

"And if she really cared about their interests, she would take this time to step back, groom a successor -- which she has not done -- and allow a fresh face to come forward while remaining a power, a force behind the scenes."

He said that for Pelosi, however, the speaker's gavel is her "white whale," and she can't let it go.

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House Speaker

In January, Pelosi will need to shore up support from most of the House Democratic caucus to win the final vote on the House floor, which traditionally has a threshold of 218 votes -- an absolute majority of all members of the House.

However, it could still be won with fewer.

The House speaker wields considerable power in the lower chamber, including the ability to shape the agenda on the House floor by determining which bills come up for debate and a vote and which do not.

In an indication of how powerful the House speaker is in the hierarchy of Washington politics, whoever holds the title is second in the line of presidential succession after the vice president.

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