Nancy Pelosi, the first woman in the Speaker’s office, has announced her retirement from American politics after a nearly 40-year career.

The 85-year-old, who has represented San Francisco since 1987, revealed her decision two days after Californian voters overwhelmingly approved “Proposition 50”, a state redistricting effort aimed at flipping five House seats to Democrats in the midterm elections next year.

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

“With a grateful heart, I look forward to my final year of service as your proud representative.

“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.”

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

Mrs Pelosi served as the 52nd Speaker of the House of Representatives from 2007 to 2011, and again from 2019 to 2023, and was the first woman elected to the role.

She was also the first woman to lead a major political party in either chamber of Congress, heading the House Democrats from 2003 to 2023.

During her second tenure as Speaker, the House twice impeached Donald Trump – in December 2019, and January 2021 – though the Senate acquitted him both times.

And in February 2020, during President Trump’s State of the Union address, she famously tore up her official copy of it, arguing “it was such a dirty speech”.

An architect of the Affordable Care Act, Mrs Pelosi has also been credited with quietly persuading Joe Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race.

Now her political contemporaries have paid tribute.

Former President Joe Biden said America “will always be grateful” to her.

He posted on X: “I often said Nancy Pelosi was the best Speaker of the House in American history – it’s why I awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

“When I was President, we worked together to grow our economy, create millions of jobs, and make historic investments in our nation’s future.”

California’s Democrat Governor Gavin Newsom, said she “inspired generations” and “set the standard for what public service should be”.

While party colleague, Senator Adam Schiff, who also represents California, called her “the greatest Speaker in American history” and highlighted her “tenacity, intellect, strategic acumen and fierce advocacy”.

And Representative Don Beyer of Virginia, another Democrat, said she was “a major figure in American history”, a “barrier breaker”, and “one of our most brilliant and accomplished leaders”.

First elected in 1987, she came into politics later in life, and has long resisted calls to step aside, turning questions about her future into spirited rebuttals.

But she’s faced new challenges in recent years and her decision to step down is not fully unexpected.

Read more:
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What Zohran Mamdani’s win means for Trump

Last year she fractured her hip when she fell during a European trip, and was rushed to a military hospital for surgery.

And in 2022, her husband Paul Pelosi was gravely injured by a home intruder who beat him over the head with a hammer and demanded to know “Where is Nancy?”

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Nonetheless, she’s maintained a rigorous political schedule of public events and party fundraisers.

Now eyes will turn to the question of her successor, both at home in San Francisco, and in the US Congress where she plays a behind-the-scenes leadership role.

She’s already faced a potential primary challenge from Saikat Chakrabarti, a left-wing newcomer who played a part in the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez – another rising star in the progressive firmament.

Don’t be led by what appears to be obvious.

The Mamdani victory is historic for him, a dreamy American journey for an immigrant rising to the top, and, along with the governor victories in New Jersey and Virginia, it undoubtedly represents a gear shift for the Democrats who have been lost in a Trumpian vortex since Joe Biden’s disastrous presidential debate 18 months ago.

All of this is true. And in that sense, it was of course a very good night for the Democratic Party. Winning is clearly better than losing.

But what if Mamdani is actually a poison chalice for the Democrats? They are drinking this socialist’s champagne now because they finally have some momentum.

But he isn’t a champagne socialist. He is a purist socialist; proudly one.

Explainer: Who is Zohran Mamdani?

With his skilful communication skills and his apparent authenticity, he has energised New York City. And no wonder. The alternative was the flawed, compromised Andrew Cuomo. Mamdani offered hope for a deeply liberal city that’s lost in Trump World.

Trump endorsed Cuomo not because he agrees with Mamdani’s own tagline: “I am Trump’s worst nightmare…”

Trump endorsed Cuomo because he knew that it would probably increase Mamdani’s share of the vote – and it did.

Why would Trump do this? Maybe because he thinks Mamdani is the perfect foil for him.

What Trump can get out of apparent defeat

Mamdani’s victory gives Trump and his allies two things.

First, they can sit back and watch the Democrats squabble about whether Mamdani’s leftward Democratic socialism is the future of their party. And be in no doubt, they will.

Second, they can warn centrists and right-leaning folk: ‘Look, the Democrats really are socialists…’. The president continues to frame him as a “communist”.

The Democrats may choose the Mamdani lane and stick with it, especially if he is successful in New York. But the Big Apple is not remotely representative of America.

Beyond New York City, Mamdani is, history would suggest, off the spectrum when it comes to electable Democratic Party candidates – America remains a conservative society; political spectrums here naturally tack right.

Team Trump knows all this, so they’ll relish the prospect of the Democratic Party machine (which has form in picking the wrong candidate) being lured by Mamdani-mania.

Cost of living a key issue

Beyond that, there is a vital takeaway for Trump from this mini and not wholly representative referendum on his presidency so far.

Many ordinary Americans are still hurting economically, big time.

The Democrats won in New York, New Jersey and Virginia because their candidates all focused on kitchen table issues.

The president clearly recognises this, to an extent. “Day by day, we’re going to make America affordable again,” he said after the Mamdani victory.

But he was speaking not to the people who are feeling the squeeze. Instead, he chose to mark a year since he was elected with a speech to a wealthy business crowd in Miami. Safe crowd, safe state, safe space.

JD Vance’s telling reaction

Maybe the most telling thing to come out of the past 24 hours in American politics was from the vice president.

In a social media post, JD Vance first warned followers not to overreact to the results.

He then went on to offer his own notable interpretation of the Democratic Party victories.

“We need to focus on the home front.” he wrote. “The president has done a lot that has already paid off in lower interest rates and lower inflation, but we inherited a disaster from Joe Biden and Rome wasn’t built in a day.

“We’re going to keep on working to make a decent life affordable in this country, and that’s the metric by which we’ll ultimately be judged in 2026 and beyond.”

Read more: Mamdani can’t expect easy wins

My interpretation of his interpretation?

Two points: first, that Vance thinks that Trump needs to get back to his base. Ten months of presidential jet-setting and global-conflict-solving may have been necessary, but it won’t spell victory in the midterms next year or beyond.

The second point – Vance is so clearly in it for the long game. The “beyond” he talks about has him at its centre.

I’m not sure Vance would have chosen a Miami arena full of business leaders to mark a year since the election. The business and investment community is happy and wealthy.

I think Vance would have been with the other America, where people are feeling the squeeze still.

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Trump continues to talk about the economy being “Biden’s economy”. Vance seems to be hinting at the inevitable – that at some point they need to own it and to fix it. They need to make people feel better off.

Vance wants to run and to win in 2028, and that fight begins now.

As an image makeover, I suppose it was instant.

I swear we saw a vision of Zohran Mamdani watching Sky Sports News transfer deadline day coverage, top on, texting the group chat about late medicals and beating his chest, still, about Thierry Henry to Barcelona.

Yes, New York’s new mayor is an Arsenal supporter. He told me as much when I introduced myself from Sky News.

He said in his youth he’d been a viewer of Sky’s transfer deadline day, when fans watch live coverage of their club’s transfer activity.

In a “morning after” news conference, it was pleasant chat – evidence of the everyman anti-politician who’d sold personality with the politics. If it’s a game they all play, some do it better than others.

But then there was my question to him. What message did his victory send to his own Democratic Party, members of which have been cool on his left-wing politics?

Also, what did it mean to Donald Trump? He bit on the Trump part of the question but dodged the other bit that alluded to a reluctant Democratic old guard.

It is a pressing issue for a party clutching for a strategy to beat Trump, and yet pushing away the left-wing Mamdani, one of their own, who found the formula in New York.

Democrats have a big square to circle

Clearly, it isn’t a party discussion to be aired publicly, which means there’s no coherent strategy.

Privately, however, it’s a circle they must surely square: how to harness the strategy and success of a leftist agenda that landed in New York, and make it work across America.

Mamdani’s victory will build influence on the left of the movement – and its tangible success to counter a party establishment dismissing its progressive wing as toxic to the brand.

Mamdani held his victory news conference in the shadow of the “Unisphere”, a representation of the Earth in Flushing, Queens.

Read more from Sky News:
Trump100: The night Democrats fought back
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From rapper to New York mayor, who is Mamdani?

The caption encouraged by his handlers was, presumably, something to do with the “world at his feet”. “World of difficulty” would be an alternative that might not find an argument.

For the Arsenal supporter at the heart of US politics, there is no easy win – even in the home games.