By Felicia Sonmez

The Washington Post

Kathy Manning, the Democratic nominee in the 13th Congressional District, is airing a new TV ad in which she declares she will not support Rep. Nancy Pelosi for House speaker, becoming the latest candidate to buck her party’s House leader.

Manning, who is running against Republican incumbent Ted Budd, had previously announced that she would not support Pelosi, making her one of more than two dozen Democrats to do so.

But the TV ad places her among only a handful of candidates to take their opposition to the airwaves.

“I’ll vote against Nancy Pelosi for speaker, support term limits from party leaders, and I won’t take a dime of corporate PAC money,” Manning says in the ad, which she ends by pledging to voters, “I’ll only answer to you.”

In 2016, President Donald Trump won the 13th District by 9.2 percentage points, and Budd won it by more than 12 points.

As November nears, Democrats are optimistic about their chances of retaking the House, where Republicans hold a 23-seat majority. Yet an onslaught of Republican ads featuring Pelosi in races across the country has led a growing number of Democrats in swing districts to distance themselves from their party’s longtime House leader.

Rep. Conor Lamb, D-Pa., aired a TV ad declaring his opposition to Pelosi before going on to win in a special-election upset this year. Democrat Anthony Brindisi in New York’s 22nd District has aired a similar ad, pledging that he will not support Pelosi and calling for new leadership in both parties.

In another sign that concerns about a brewing insurgency against Pelosi have reached the top levels of House Democratic leadership, House Assistant Democratic Leader James Clyburn of South Carolina said last weekend that he would be open to serving as a “transitional” speaker in the event Pelosi does not secure enough votes to lead her party in November.

“I’m very much up for it,” Clyburn, the No. 3 Democrat in the House, told McClatchy newspapers in an interview on the sidelines of the Congressional Black Caucus Institute’s annual policy forum in Tunica, Mississippi.

Clyburn told the gathering that he would work to “transform” the House Democratic caucus to make it more welcoming to young African-Americans, McClatchy reported.