November 21, 2016 03:13 PM UTC

Perlmutter Backs Tim Ryan Over Pelosi for Minority Leader

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• by: Colorado Pols

Ohio Democratic Rep. Tim Ryan announced last week that he would challenge longtime Democratic Congressional boss  Nancy Pelosi for the title of Minority Leader. Democrats will hold a caucus vote next Wednesday (November 30th) — a delayed vote requested by Democrats in the wake of a difficult 2016 election.

It is probably still too early to gauge whether or not Ryan has a real chance of upending Pelosi, but he apparently has convinced at least one high-profile Colorado Democrat. As the Denver Post reports:

Colorado Democrat Ed Perlmutter said Monday that he has decided to support Ohio congressman Tim Ryan in his upstart bid to unseat Nancy Pelosi as the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Perlmutter, recently re-elected to his sixth term, said he had nothing against Pelosi or current leadership, but the results of the Nov. 8 election — which saw Hillary Clinton lose swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania to Donald Trump — were enough to convince him a change was needed.

“Let’s not go back to the status quo here,” Perlmutter said in an interview. “That’s not taking anything away from Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer or Jim Clyburn. They’re my friends, they’ve assisted me. They’ve been supportive of me. But as a general proposition, we need a change.”

This is a good move for Perlmutter for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the fact that he is likely to seek the Democratic nomination for Governor in 2018. While fellow Congressional Democrats in Colorado (Rep. Diana DeGette and Rep. Jared Polis) have yet to take a public position on the Democratic House leadership battle, neither are considering an immediate run for statewide office. If Perlmutter wants to convince rank-and-file Democrats that he is the right person to lead Colorado donkeys in 2018, it would be difficult to make that argument while also sticking with the “status quo” on Capitol Hill.

Perlmutter cannot easily be accused of blind political ambition in making this decision; when he says that he believes Democrats need to change things up, it is a decision rooted in his own history of making independent choices in deciding where to put his support. The Jefferson County Democrat was an early supporter of then-Senator Barack Obama when the latter ran for President in 2008, but he has also been open in the past about his support for Democrats such as Pelosi and Hillary Clinton.

Whether or not Ryan is successful in toppling Pelosi next week, this is the kind of leadership move from Perlmutter that should only help him in earning support from Colorado Democrats aching to see a different approach in 2018.