Nancy Pelosi hinted at her Democratic primary vote during an appearance in Boston
"I usually always cast my vote for a woman."
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi isn’t endorsing anyone in the now-narrowed Democratic presidential primary race. However, during an appearance Monday morning at Northeastern University, the California congresswoman did hint at how she “usually” votes.
At the annual Women Who Empower summit, Pelosi was asked about what has effectively become a two-way race between former vice president Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders, following Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s decision to suspend her campaign last week. Pressed on how the public should interpret her resistance to the Medicare-for-All proposal championed by Sanders when it came to the primary race, Pelosi said her personal health care views have “no reflection on who I would support for president.”
“I’d just say, just generally, I usually always cast my vote for a woman,” she added with a laugh. “I just do.”
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Alluding to the general election, Pelosi added that she no longer has that opportunity — though she didn’t say who she backed in the California presidential primary last week.
“We have in our caucus a range of opinions — many who supported Senator Warren,” Pelosi said during the summit, noting that Rep. Katherine Clark, who was also at event, had endorsed the Massachusetts senator.
“I think every candidate — just about every candidate — had supporters in our caucus, and I’m all for my caucus,” the Democratic leader added.
Pelosi has said in the past that she doesn’t believe that voters should be asked to support a female candidate just because they’re a woman. After Warren dropped out of the 2020 race last week, Pelosi said she believed the country was ready for a female president, but added that women in politics do face an “element of misogyny.”
“Every time I get introduced as ‘the most powerful woman of our [country],’ I almost cry, because I’m thinking, ‘I wish that were not true,'” Pelosi told reporters during a press conference Thursday.
“I so wish that we had a woman President of the United States,” she said. “And we came very close to doing that, a woman who was better qualified than so many people who have sought that office and even won it.”
Pelosi said she will enthusiastically support whoever the Democratic Party nominates and celebrated the different “points of view” that were represented in the field, specifically naming Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Warren. Klobuchar and Warren have both suggested that their gender had an impact on their candidacies.
“I don’t know whether men think about being president from the day they’re born and start running then, but I don’t know that women do that,” Pelosi said. “And maybe we should. Somebody should.”
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