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By Kathy Wray Coleman, editor

CLEVELANDURBANNEWS.COM-CLEVELAND, Ohio- Ohio 11th Congressional District Congresswoman Marcia L. Fudge, a Warrensville Heights Democrat who is one of two Blacks in congress from Ohio and whose congressional district includes most of the majority Black areas between Cleveland and Akron and several of Cleveland's eastern suburbs, announced Tuesday that she will not run against House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California for the prominent position of speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Instead, says Fudge, she will endorse Pelsoi for the House speaker job that congressional Democrats will vote on after the Thanksgiving Holiday, with a full House vote scheduled for January.

"I now join my colleagues in support of the leadership team of Pelosi, Hoyer and Clyburn," Fudge said in a press statement,

Reps. Steny Hoyer and James Clyburn are both running to retain their respective positions of the No. 2 and No. 3 highest-ranking Democrats in the new congress, behind Pelosi, who has yet to draw a formal opponent..

Fudge, 66, has served as the U.S. Representative for Ohio's 11th congressional district since 2008.

She won a special election to succeed Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who died in office, and has since been reelected several times, and by huge margins.

A former national president of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Inc and former Warrensville Heights mayor, Fudge, a trained lawyer, was chairwoman of the Congressional Black Caucus^[ in the 113th Congress.

Though currently the Minority Leader of the United States House of Representatives and likely the speaker of the House in 2019, Rep Pelosi served as House Speaker from 2007-2011 when Republicans, who control the Senate, reclaimed control of the House only to lose it this year to Pelosi and the Democrats via the November midterm elections.

She met Friday with Fudge and other Democratic critics in congress to mend fences, sources said..

Fudge toyed with the issue of opposing Pelosi for speaker of the House.

"She was the person who over the last eight years lost seats," Fudge told CNN last week of Pelosi, after saying she had not ruled out a run for House speaker.

That all changed Tuesday when Fudge decided to join Pelosi's team to fight against the right wing attack on the Democratic Party in congress, and elsewhere.

Some 18 congressional Democrats had publicly said they would not back Pelosi to lead the House beginning in 2019,  though that mumber pales in comparison to the number of Democrats in the House.

Going into the midterm elections there were  237 Republicans (including 1 Delegate and the Resident Commissioner of Puerto Rico), 197 Democrats (including 4 Delegates), and 7 vacant seats. The Senate, data show, had 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats, and 2 Independents, who both caucus with the Democrats.

Led by the METOO movement, Democrats, led by newly elected women across the country,  gained 33 seats via the midterm elections in the House and improved their control of the chamber to 228 to 198, though  nine elections around the country are  still undecided.

Senate Republicans gained only one seat, projections reveal, to maintain control of the Senate, 51 to 47.

The Senate voted last week to keep the  same leadership next year, as Republicans and Democrats elected Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer respectively to lead their respective caucuses

Congressman Tim Ryan, a Youngstown-area Democrat who tried unsuccessfully two years ago to oust Pelosi as House Minority Leader with Fudge's help but lost by a 2-1 margin, had said publicly that he will not run for House speaker.

Several congressional Democrats campaigned this year with the promise of working to oust Pelosi, 78, as the chief Democratic leader of the House.

Pelosi was House Minority Whip from 2002 to 2003, and was House Minority Leader from 2003 to 2007 before she became speaker of the House in 2007 when the Republicans lost the House, the Republicans again gaining control of the House in 2011 and Pelosi stepping down as House speaker and up again as House Minority Leader.

She is the first woman to lead a majority party in congress.