Promptly celebrated with a drink or three.
Via Washington Post:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) on Wednesday won the race to lead the Democratic caucus for an eighth term, prevailing in a contest that became a vote of confidence in her continued stewardship and an early proxy battle over the future of the Democratic Party.
Pelosi easily toppled Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), a seven-term lawmaker who launched an upstart bid to lead House Democrats two weeks ago in response to the party’s disappointing November election results and concerns that Democrats have become out of touch with working class voters in key swing states like Pennsylvania, Michigan and Ohio.
But Pelosi’s margin of victory, 134 votes to 63 for Ryan, signaled a large degree of discontent with her continued leadership after 14 years atop the caucus and, more broadly, with the Democratic policy agenda that many lawmakers say has grown stale. While she cleared her self-declared margin of victory, a two-thirds majority, many Democrats were stunned that almost a third of the caucus was willing to vote for a backbench lawmaker with no major policy or political experience.
Many were left wondering whether a more seasoned Democrat could have actually toppled Pelosi, with several privately suggesting this would have to be Pelosi’s last term as leader. Ryan’s 63 votes marked the largest number of opposition votes Pelosi has faced in any leadership race since winning a deputy leadership position 15 years ago that set her on a course to become the first female House speaker.