Rep. Tim Ryan, who is challenging House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi for her leadership post, asked on Monday how thin Democratic ranks have to get before the party changes direction.

“I think there’s an appetite for change within our caucus,” Mr. Ryan, Ohio Democrat, said on “Fox & Friends.”

Mrs. Pelosi has said she has the support of two-thirds of her caucus, but Mr. Ryan said if there is another third, those are probably the members who are in the closest elections.

“And I think that says something,” he said. “But the question really is, how bad does it have to get?”

“I mean, we lost 68 seats since 2010, we have the lowest number we’ve had in our caucus since 1929. … The question is, how bad does it have to get before we recognize we have a change?” Mr. Ryan said.

“I think within our caucus, we’re not tapping into the talent that we have in our caucus,” he said. “People feel bottlenecked, like they don’t have an opportunity. We need to raise the profile of these young Democrats and give them a platform to be rock stars in our party.”

Mr. Ryan said he’d sit down and talk about getting people back to work, but he expressed skepticism about GOP overtures on infrastructure.

“If Donald Trump’s going to defund Planned Parenthood, privatize Medicare, just simply cut taxes for the top 1 percent and throw people off their health care, he’s going to be in a street fight with a kid from the Youngstown area, and that’s how that’s going to work,” Mr. Ryan said.

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