Democrat Nancy Pelosi wins re-election as US Speaker of the House with slim majority

Democrat Nancy Pelosi on Sunday wasre-elected as theUnited States Speaker of the House with a slim majority in a deeply divided new Congress that convened in the final weeks of Donald Trump's presidency.

Pelosi wasreinstated after the Housevoted 216-209after Democrats lost 11 seats in the November elections to command a narrower 222-212 majority.

Shefaced a scare when five fellow Democrats defected and voted "present" or for someone else during the floor vote.

"As we are sworn in today, we accept responsibility as daunting and demanding as any that previous generations of leadership have faced. We begin the new Congress during a time of extraordinary difficulty,"Pelosisaid in a floor speech that noted the deaths of more than 350,000 Americans from the COVID-19 pandemic.

"Our most urgent priority will continue to be defeating the coronavirus. And defeat it, we will," she added, pledging that further aid would follow the latest $892 billion package that Congress passed in December.

The Senate remains Republican-run ahead of twin elections in Georgia on Tuesday, giving its members a platform to again air President Donald Trump's baseless claims that his loss to Democratic President-elect Joe Biden was the result of fraud.

Multiple state and federal reviews have found no evidence of the sort of widespread fraud Trump claims, but Republican senators and House members plan to challenge the election result when Congress certifies it on Wednesday.

Pelosi, 80, the only woman to serve as US Speaker of the House,has been Trump's chief nemesis in Congress, and the two clashed bitterly over the past two years, particularly as she levelled impeachment charges against the president.

Trump was impeached in December 2019, but the Senate acquitted him early in 2020. His successor, Joe Biden, takes office on January 20.

With Pelosi scrambling to keep her post, it was a handful of progressive lawmakers and members-elect who have been critical of her leadership but ultimately voted for her on Sunday.

Among them was Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, one of the most high-profile Democrats in Washington, and incoming lawmaker Cori Bush, who is the first African-American woman to represent Missouri in Congress.

There are normally 435 members of the House, but just 427 votes were cast Sunday as a few congressmen-elect are in quarantine due to Covid-19 and a tight House race in New York has yet to be formally decided.

One congressman-elect from Louisiana, Luke Letlow, died of complications from Covid-19 last week, days before he was due to be sworn in.

That leaves Democrats with one of the slimmest House majorities in two decades, 222 to 211 with two vacancies, as they navigate the remaining few weeks of Trump and carry into the Biden presidency.

On a day that was anything but conventional, Republican Chip Roy interrupted the swearing-in process to ask that the delegations from the six swing states where Trump has contested the election results not be seated Sunday as House members.

Pelosi dispensed with the effort by holding a vote that affirmed her right to swear in all members.