Nancy Pelosi won't seek reelection, ending her storied career in the US House

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi will not seek reelection to the U.S. House, bringing to a close her storied career as not only the first woman in the speaker's office but arguably the most powerful in American politics.

Pelosi, who has represented San Francisco for nearly 40 years, announced her decision Thursday.

“I will not be seeking reelection to Congress,” Pelosi said in a video address to voters.

Pelosi, appearing upbeat and forward-looking as images of her decades of accomplishments filled the frames, said she would finish out her final year in office. And she left those who sent her to Congress with a call to action to carry on the legacy of agenda-setting both in the U.S. and around the world.

“My message to the city I love is this: San Francisco, know your power,” she said. “We have made history. We have made progress. We have always led the way.”

Pelosi said, “And now we must continue to do so by remaining full participants in our democracy and fighting for the American ideals we hold dear.”

The decision, while not fully unexpected, ricocheted across Washington, and California, as a seasoned generation of political leaders is stepping aside ahead of next year's midterm elections. Some are leaving reluctantly, others with resolve, but many are facing challenges from newcomers eager to lead the Democratic Party and confront President Donald Trump.

Pelosi, 85, remains a political powerhouse and played a pivotal role with California's redistricting effort, Prop 50, and the party's comeback in this week's election. She maintains a robust schedule of public events and party fundraising, and her announced departure touches off a succession battle back home and leaves open questions about who will fill her behind-the-scenes leadership role at the Capitol.

Former President Barack Obama said Pelosi will go down in history as "one of the best speakers the House of Representatives has ever had.”

An architect of the Affordable Care Act during Obama's tenure, and a leader on the international stage, Pelosi came to Congress later in life, a mother of five mostly grown children, but also raised in a political family in Baltimore, where her father and brother both served in elected office.

Long criticized by Republicans, who have spent millions of dollars on campaign ads vilifying her as a coastal elite and more, Pelosi remained unrivaled. She routinely fended off calls to step aside by turning questions about her intentions into spirited rebuttals, asking if the same was being posed of her seasoned male colleagues on Capitol Hill.

In her video address, she noted that her first campaign slogan was “a voice that will be heard.”

And with that backing, she became a speaker “whose voice would certainly be heard,” she said.

But after Pelosi quietly helped orchestrate Joe Biden’s withdrawal from the 2024 presidential race, she has decided to pass the torch, too.

Last year, she experienced a fall resulting in a hip fracture during a whirlwind congressional visit to allies in Europe, but even still it showcased her grit: It was revealed she was rushed to a military hospital for surgery — after the group photo, in which she's seen smiling, poised on her trademark stiletto heels.

Pelosi's decision also comes as her husband of more than six decades, Paul Pelosi, was gravely injured three years ago when an intruder demanding to know “Where is Nancy?” broke into the couple’s home and beat him over the head with a hammer. His recovery from the attack, days before the 2022 midterm elections, is ongoing.

Ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, Pelosi faced a potential primary challenge in California. Newcomer Saikat Chakrabarti, who helped devise progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise in New York, has mounted a campaign, as has state Sen. Scott Wiener.

While Pelosi remains an unmatched force for the Democratic Party, having fundraised more than $1 billion over her career, her next steps are uncertain. First elected in 1987 after having worked in California state party politics, she has spent some four decades in public office.

Pelosi’s legacy as House speaker comes not only because she was the first woman to have the job but also because of what she did with the gavel, seizing the enormous powers that come with the suite of offices overlooking the National Mall.

During her first tenure, from 2007 to 2011, she steered the House in passing landmark legislation into law — the Affordable Care Act, the Dodd-Frank financial reforms in the aftermath of the Great Recession and a repeal of the military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy against LGBTQ service members.

With Obama in the White House and Democratic Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada leading the Senate, the 2009-10 session of Congress ended among the most productive since the Lyndon B. Johnson era.

But a conservative Republican “tea party” revolt bounced Democrats from power, ushering in a new style of Republicans, who would pave the way for Trump to seize the White House in 2016.

Determined to win back control, Pelosi helped recruit and propel dozens of women to office in the 2018 midterm elections as Democrats running as the resistance to Trump’s first term.

On the campaign trail that year, Pelosi told The Associated Press that if House Democrats won, she would show the “power of the gavel.”

Pelosi became the first speaker to regain the office in some 50 years, and her second term, from 2019 to 2023, became potentially more consequential than the first, particularly as the Democratic Party's antidote to Trump.

Trump was impeached by the House — twice — first in 2019 for withholding U.S. aid to Ukraine as it faced a hostile Russia at its border and then in 2021 days after the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol. The Senate acquitted him in both cases.

Pelosi stood up the Jan. 6 special committee to probe Trump's role in sending his mob of supporters to the Capitol, when most Republicans refused to investigate, producing the 1,000-page report that became the first full accounting of what happened as the defeated president tried to stay in office.

After Democrats lost control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, Pelosi announced she would not seek another term as party leader.

Rather than retire, she charted a new course for leaders, taking on the emerita title that would become used by others, including Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy of California during his brief tenure after he was ousted by his colleagues from the speaker's office in 2023.

Follow the AP's coverage of Nancy Pelosi at https://apnews.com/hub/nancy-pelosi.

FILE - Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi is seen at the Emily's List 2008 Convention Gala at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Aug. 26, 2008. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke, File)

FILE - President Donald Trump turns to House speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., as he delivers his State of the Union address to a joint session of Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, as Vice President Mike Pence watches, Feb. 5, 2019. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik File)

FILE - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif. reacts as she listens to a question from a reporter during her weekly press briefing on Capitol Hill, Thursday, Sept. 30, 2021, in Washington. (AP Photo/Andrew Harnik File)

FILE - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of Calif., arrives to speak about the House coronavirus bill on Capitol Hill in Washington, March, 13, 2020. (AP Photo/Scott Applewhite, File)

FILE - House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California holds the gavel at the Capitol in Washington, Jan. 3, 2019. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster, File)

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Leo XIV expressed hope that the U.S.-Israel war on Iran could be finished before Easter in remarks to reporters as he left the papal retreat at Castel Gandolfo outside of Rome on Tuesday.

“I’m told that President Trump has recently stated that he would like to end the war,’’ the U.S.-born pope said. “I hope that he’s looking for an off-ramp.’’

“Hopefully he’s looking for a way to decrease the amount of violence, of bombing, which would be a significant contribution to removing the hatred that’s being created, that’s increasing constantly in the Middle East and elsewhere.”

Leo called on all world leaders to return to dialogue and look for “ways to reduce the amount of violence,’’ so that “peace, especially at Easter, might reign in our hearts.’’

Leo's remarks came during Holy Week, the most sacred period of the year for Christians.

“It should be the holiest time of the year. It is a time of peace, a time of reflection. But as we all know, again, in the world, in many places we are seeing so much suffering, so many deaths, even innocent children,’’ Leo said. “We constantly make the call for peace, but unfortunately, many people want to promote hatred, violence, war.’’

On Palm Sunday, the pontiff said God doesn’t listen to the prayers of those who make war or cite God to justify their violence, as he prayed especially for Christians in the Middle East during Mass in St. Peter’s Square.

Leaders on all sides of the Iran war have used religion to justify their actions. U.S. officials, especially Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, have invoked their Christian faith to cast the war as a Christian nation trying to vanquish its foes with military might.

Russia’s Orthodox Church, too, has justified Russia’s invasion of Ukraine as a “holy war” against a Western world it considers has fallen into evil.

As Holy Week continues, Leo will carry out the Holy Thursday foot-washing tradition in the basilica of St. John Lateran, where popes have performed it for decades. On Friday, Leo is due to preside over the Good Friday procession at Rome’s Colosseum commemorating Christ’s Passion and crucifixion, and will carry the cross himself. Saturday brings the late night Easter Vigil, during which Leo will baptize new Catholics, followed a few hours later by Easter Sunday when Christians commemorate the resurrection of Jesus.

Leo will celebrate Easter Sunday Mass in St. Peter’s Square and then deliver his Easter blessing from the loggia of the basilica.

Pope Leo XIV talks to journalists as he leaves his residence in Castel Gandolfo, on the outskirts of Rome, to return to the Vatican, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV talks to journalists as he leaves his residence in Castel Gandolfo, on the outskirts of Rome, to return to the Vatican, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV talks to journalists as he leaves his residence in Castel Gandolfo, on the outskirts of Rome, to return to the Vatican, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV talks to journalists as he leaves his residence in Castel Gandolfo, on the outskirts of Rome, to return to the Vatican, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)

Pope Leo XIV talks to journalists as he leaves his residence in Castel Gandolfo, on the outskirts of Rome, to return to the Vatican, Tuesday, March 31, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)