The Hill News

Weeks before Election Day, strategists in both parties knew the GOP would win back control of the House of Representatives on Nov. 2. Too many seats were gone, and the momentum was headed in one direction. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) knew it too, even as she continued to declare that Democrats would keep their majority. Rank-and-file Democrats had been led to believe that Pelosi would step down from leadership in the event of huge losses for her party, just as former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) had done when Democrats won back the House in 2006. After all, Pelosi had been the target of $65 million in ads against Democrats and had become for the right what Dick Cheney had became to the left several years ago â€" the poster child for partisan liberal Democrats profoundly out of touch with most of America. Democrats lost throughout the South and Midwest, in districts Pelosi hasn't been able come near for the last three cycles.

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