WASHINGTON — Rep. Nancy Pelosi, the former House speaker, suggested this week that it would have been better for the Democratic Party if President Joe Biden had abandoned his reelection campaign sooner and the party had then held a competitive primary process to replace him.

In an interview Thursday with the New York Times, Pelosi said what was widely reported around the time Biden dropped out: that she believed it was implicitly understood that his exit would be followed by an internal party competition for a new nominee, instead of an anointment of Vice President Kamala Harris.

“Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said during an interview with Lulu Garcia-Navarro, a host of “The Interview,” a Times podcast. She added during the interview, “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary.”

Pelosi went on: “And as I say, Kamala may have, I think she would have done well in that and been stronger going forward. But we don’t know that. That didn’t happen. We live with what happened. And because the president endorsed Kamala Harris immediately, that really made it almost impossible to have a primary at that time. If it had been much earlier, it would have been different.”

Biden endorsed Harris within an hour after he ended his campaign in July, a decision he made only after an intense pressure campaign from Democrats that Pelosi quietly led. His support for the vice president, along with backing from many other Democrats, choked off any avenue for a challenger to emerge. Over two weeks, Harris swiftly gathered support from delegates to the Democratic National Convention.

While some Democrats floated the idea of a quick primary, those proposals never gained traction and were not embraced by the Democratic National Committee or convention delegates.

In the interview, Pelosi went to great lengths to defend the Biden administration’s legislative accomplishments, most of which took place during his first two years, when she was the House speaker. After Republicans won control of the House in the 2022 midterm elections, she relinquished her leadership post but remained in the chamber as an eminence grise for the party.

The former speaker, who was elected Tuesday to her 20th term representing San Francisco, argued in the interview that the Democratic Party still stood up for working-class voters on economic issues.

Eagan authorities are asking residents to stay vigilant after two sexual assaults at Lebanon Hills Regional Park.

The Eagan Police Department said a woman was attacked while walking alone on one of the park’s trails around 11 a.m. on Nov. 7. Her assault follows a “similar incident” near the same location on Sept. 7, but that victim got away from the suspect. No arrests have been made.

“The Eagan Police Department and Dakota County Sheriff’s Office have increased patrol activity in and around the Lebanon Hills Regional Park,” a news release said. “We are actively working on leads in both cases, therefore this is an open/active investigation, so no further information will be released.”

While investigators search for suspects, police asked residents to remain cautious by: walking in pairs or groups, staying aware of their surroundings, avoiding poorly lit areas and staying in populated areas, and reporting suspicious activity to 911.

But in May that year, DFLers voted to expel Independent-Republican Rep. Robert Pavlak of St. Paul. The DFL had sued Pavlak, alleging he distributed false information in campaign literature. Sviggum said Pavlak reprinted a newspaper editorial that got some facts wrong. Pavlak lost an appeal of the case, and the DFL moved to oust him. Because Pavlak could not vote in his own case, the vote was 67-66, and he was removed. That move gave the DFL a one-seat majority.

“It was power politics at its best, or worst,” Sviggum said. The floor session was tense.

“You could hear a pin drop on the House floor,” he said. “There were tears being shed, real tears.”

Murphy said the vote to expel Pavlak was one of the hardest of her 46-year career in the House.

Hortman said she hopes today’s leaders will not try to remove members, and will instead work across the aisle.

She repeatedly pointed to her experience in the 2020-21 session working with former Sen. Paul Gazelka, then the Republican Senate majority leader. With divided government, Minnesota got a budget passed, along with some bipartisan police accountability bills after the murder of George Floyd.