Nancy Pelosi Tells NYT She Blames New York Democrats Failure on Crime Issue for Party Losing House in Midterms

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Nancy Pelosi believes her party could have held onto a majority in the House if New York Democrats tackled crime as a more serious and pressing issue.

In a lengthy interview with Maureen Dowd for the New York Times, Pelosi discussed moving on from her role as speaker of the House and the disappointment in giving Republicans a slim majority in the House during the midterms.

“She said that she believed the Democrats could have held onto the House in November if top New York pols had realized that the key issue in that state was crime,” Dowd wrote about her sit-down with Pelosi.

Republicans did see some surprising results in New York, including Rep. George Santos (R-NY) picking up a seat in a district President Joe Biden previously won in the presidential race. Santos is now of course facing accusations of lying about his work history, charity work, family history, and a growing list of other things.

The former House speaker said the issue of crime should have been dealt with earlier and specifically called out New York Governor Kathy Hochul (R).

“The governor didn’t realize soon enough where the trouble was,” she said.

One Democrat accused of downplaying crime as an issue is Rep. Alexandria Ocasio Cortez (D-NY). In November, the congresswoman earned pushback for claiming “most major crime” was decreasing in New York City and blaming an increase in police at subway platforms for criminal activity increasing on the MTA.

For that month of November, crime overall saw a decrease over the previous year, while crimes like homicides ticked up. Robberies, assault, and car theft also ticked up.

You can read the full Pelosi interview here.

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