In a heartfelt video address, Pelosi announced, “I will not be seeking re-election to Congress,” signaling a new chapter in her political career.

With a spirit of optimism and determination, Pelosi reflected on her many years of service, while a montage of her significant accomplishments played. She promised to complete her current term and encouraged those who elected her to continue championing a forward-thinking agenda, both nationally and globally.

“To the city I hold dear, my message is this: San Francisco, recognize your strength,” she urged.

“We have made historic strides. We have achieved progress. We’ve always been trailblazers.”

“Now, we must persist by actively engaging in our democracy and defending the cherished American values we uphold.”

Although not entirely unforeseen, Pelosi’s announcement reverberated through Washington and California. As the seasoned political figures prepare to step down before the next midterm elections, a mix of reluctance and determination characterizes their departures. Meanwhile, fresh faces eager to shape the Democratic Party and tackle the challenges posed by former President Donald Trump are stepping into the spotlight.

Pelosi remains a political powerhouse and played a pivotal role with California’s re-districting effort, Prop 50, and the party’s comeback in this month’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.

An architect of the Affordable Care Act and a leader on the international stage, Pelosi, 85, came to politics later in life, a mother of five mostly grown children. She has long fended off calls for her to step aside by turning questions about her intentions into spirited rebuttals, asking if the same was being posed of her 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 came after 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. Left-wing newcomer Saikat Chakrabarti, who helped devise progressive superstar Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s political rise in New York, has mounted a campaign, and state Sen. Scott Wiener is also reported to be considering a run.

While Pelosi remains an unmatched force for the Democratic Party, having fundraised more than $US1 billion ($1.55 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.

Madam speaker takes the gavel

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 President Barack Obama in the White House and Democratic Senator Harry Reid of Nevada leading the Senate, the 2009-10 session of Congress ended among the most productive since the 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 returns to the speaker’s office as a check on Trump

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 US aid to Ukraine as it faced a hostile Russia at its border and then in 2021 days after the January 6 attack on the US Capitol. The Senate acquitted him in both cases.

Pelosi stood up the January 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 1000-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 politician Kevin McCarthy of California during his brief tenure after he was ousted by his colleagues from the speaker’s office in 2023.