Every two years since 2010, the year House Democrats were smothered in a Republican wave election and lost their majority, Rep. Nancy Pelosi has faced the question.

It comes from reporters and Capitol Hill staffers, opponents and allies, ladder-climbers and donors alike. The gist: Is this it? Is this the year she'll hang it up, pass the torch and bid farewell?

The closest the California Democrat ever came was following the 2010 election, a current aide says, given the staggering shock of the 63-seat Republican tsunami. Even the liberal New York Times editorial board called for her head.

In 2012, she briefly contemplated going out on a high note, given the reelection of President Barack Obama and the recovery of a handful of Democratic seats.

And in 2016, the disorienting nature of Donald Trump's triumph again kindled the notion that Democrats needed someone fresh and untainted by years of attacks to guide them out of the political desert.

But while she notoriously keeps her cards close to her vest – "She's never going to let you know; she's never going to let you see it," a former campaign hand assures – those nearest to the soon-to-be 77-year-old House minority leader never truly believed she'd walk away from an epochal battle with Trump.

If Hillary Clinton had been victorious, "I would've been gone by now," Pelosi recently told reporters, causing eyerolls to ripple through the Capitol's corridors.

"No. She would've said, 'I have to serve with the first woman president,'" says a senior Democratic aide who does not work for her.

A former House staffer who worked for Pelosi for nearly a decade remembers her once musing somewhat fatalistically about colleagues who chose to depart. "Look at those members," she said offhandedly. "They retired – and they're dead in two years."

Ironically, given Trump's volatility and the scale of the disruptive agenda he was presenting – including a promise to eviscerate Obamacare, Pelosi's paramount pride and joy – the decision in the election's aftermath came easier. Pelosi concluded that leaving could create a risky vacuum that would ensure chaos atop the Democratic Party, at a time when steely resolve and solidarity would be imperative.

"Thinking of Nancy Pelosi in a rocking chair as a grandma? That's never going to f--ing happen," the former House staffer says. "I really don't see an exit for her. This is her whole life."

In a way, the narrow prism through which the nation sees Pelosi does not do her justice. Always impeccably dressed, her wide eyes, static smile and stilted delivery can make her seem icy, aloof and even nervous. Standing next to the rhetorically colorful and clever Senate minority leader, Chuck Schumer, her own presence is dulled and often unmemorable.

Rather, it's the intangibles that are rarely seen in public – the constant personal maintenance of caucus members, the colossal cash-collecting, the laserlike vote-counting, the lockbox memory and the ceaseless stamina – that continue to make her a venerable force when most other leaders would concede their expiration dates had passed.

"You put on your armor in Washington, and we eat nails for breakfast, nails for lunch and nails for dinner," she is fond of telling confidantes.

Yet as she navigates her 30th year in Congress and remains not only the lone woman ever to serve as speaker of the House but the highest-ranking female politician in American history, the fate of Pelosi's legacy has taken an unexpected turn. Rather than being wholly defined by what she accomplished in the age of Obama, she is now being tested by what she can preserve and protect in the era of Trump, as Democrats as a whole deal with one of their most disastrous declines in power in decades.

Pelosi's office did not make her available for an interview with U.S. News, but two dozen current and former Hill and campaign staffers and advisers, House colleagues, senators, family members, friends, donors and opponents did provide their perspectives over two and a half months of reporting. Taken together, they portray Pelosi as a true believer who is genuinely troubled about the durability of her legislative legacy under Trump – and who sees herself as a bulwark no one in the party is imminently prepared to replace.

"In going toe-to-toe with Trump, I want the meanest, toughest, smartest person we have, and I don't believe there's anybody in the current Democratic Party who could be her equal," says former Rep. Martin Frost of Texas, who briefly challenged Pelosi in a leadership race 15 years ago. "She's the one I want in the foxhole fighting Trump."

At the same time, Pelosi has presided over historic losses. Democrats now need a 24-seat gain to return to power, raising the question: Is her survival more an indication of her own personal strength, or of her party's evident weakness?

"Nancy Pelosi is not Hillary Clinton, but she's the closest proxy to her that remains in power," says Rep. Steve Stivers of Ohio, who is leading the National Republican Congressional Committee this cycle. "She is a lightning rod among the Republican base. She's not seen as compatible or resonating with mainstream middle America."

"Mean" is part of the stereotype Republicans have cultivated to turn Pelosi into a Cruella de Vil caricature – an eerily grinning limousine liberal who sports Manolo Blahnik pumps while schmoozing with millionaires in San Francisco, but who appears like a deer in headlights on television.

On top of that, there is a burgeoning tide of younger Democrats who see Pelosi as clinging to power past her prime. During a Democratic caucus meeting in the wake of the 2016 election, one member joked Pelosi could start a lucrative bumper sticker company if she ever leaves Congress. "All she does is speak in slogans," grouses the congressman, requesting anonymity to preserve his standing with the leader. "It's gimmicky."

Nevertheless, she persists, with no signs of abandoning her pedestal anytime soon. She is the oldest congressional leader in either party, and her longevity is a story of sedulous ambition and unshakable perseverance. It's also one of a figure who is largely misunderstood and often underestimated in a mass media age that doesn't augment her internal strengths.

"She's cunning and relentless, and that's a pretty powerful combination in Washington," says former Rep. Steve Israel of New York. "She wears her opponents down. Even when people think she's in the back seat, she's always in the driver's seat."

"I don't think she cares much how people interpret her."

Born This Way

A young Nancy Pelosi, left, looks on as her father speaks with President John F. Kennedy in 1961 at the White House. (William Allen/AP)

Nancy Patricia D'Alesandro Pelosi is the Baltimore-born daughter of a congressman turned mayor and the only girl among five brothers. As such, she had to prove her muster from the start. Her marriage to her college sweetheart, Paul Pelosi, whisked her across the country from Manhattan to the City by the Bay, where her only requirement was that she still be able to get The New York Times delivered daily to her doorstep.

In San Francisco, her primary focus was rearing her five children, shuttling them to and from school, stitching together their Halloween costumes and competing in local bake-offs, where she once earned first prize for whipping together a chocolate cake in the shape of a tiger. Only in her free time did she begin her slow, steady climb into Democratic Party affairs.

"She was the central casting, stay-at-home housewife. That was Act 1," says her youngest daughter, documentary filmmaker Alexandra Pelosi. "When her kids were at school from 8 to 3, she had time for the party."

As her children grew older, Pelosi became more dogged in her activism, ascending all the way up the leadership ladder to become chairwoman of the California Democratic Party and launching an ill-fated bid to lead the Democratic National Committee. The relationships she developed during those years set her up for a moment that altered the course of her life.

Laying on her deathbed stricken by cancer, Rep. Sala Burton of California's 5th Congressional District summoned Pelosi to her side and asked if she would succeed her. With some convincing, Pelosi obliged, and went on to survive a crowded 1987 special election by fewer than 4,000 votes, essentially cementing her takeover of Burton's seat pending the formality of a runoff election. Ironically, it was San Francisco's Republicans who propelled her to the special-election victory over liberal city supervisor Harry Britt, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Pelosi became a first-term congresswoman at age 47, but she wasn't planning on shuttling across the country on a plane each week simply to be a wallflower within the halls of power.

Former Sen. Barbara Boxer of California, who was already in the House at that time, recalls telling Pelosi in her opening weeks, "You're gonna be speaker and I'm going to be senator. I just knew it."

Eighteen years later, Pelosi reached out to Steve Mostyn.

Not Waiting Her Turn

Democratic whip candidate Nancy Pelosi poses during a meeting on Capitol Hill in October 2001. (Scott J. Ferrell/Congressional Quarterly/Getty Images)

The sweet-talking Mostyn, a bald and goateed Houston attorney who has been described as an anchor donor of Texas politics and a "godfather" for Democratic politicians, has received countless overtures from candidates over the years pitching themselves as the next big thing.

So when Pelosi cold-called him early in the spring of 2005, it wasn't the first time he'd heard a starry-eyed sell.

"I'm going to be the next speaker of the House," she told him at the start of their conversation.

"And I remember thinking, 'Here we go. That's a waste of money,'" Mostyn says. But then, he recalls, Pelosi began an encyclopedic rundown of targeted House districts she believed could be flipped the next year, even prior to President George W. Bush's popularity hitting rock-bottom.

She'd list the name of each vulnerable Republican member, the district number and the location, before providing a snapshot of the politics at hand and often sprinkling in a poll number. Mostyn saw it as a uniquely masterful presentation of the country's electoral map from the principal herself, not a coterie of aides.

"She was so certain of it, so convincing about it," he says.

Four years earlier, it was that same level of stone-cold confidence and strategic precision that propelled Pelosi's initial and more daring leap into the rungs of House leadership, when she mounted a successful insurgent campaign to leapfrog Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and become Democratic whip. It was a career-altering race that still has its imprint on the House Democratic caucus today.

"Everything in the House stems from, 'Are you a Pelosi person or are you a Hoyer person?'" says a former Democratic aide whose boss was aligned with Hoyer at the time.

With then-House Minority Leader Dick Gephardt of Missouri eyeing the presidency in 2004 and Whip David Bonior contemplating a run for Michigan governor, Pelosi spotted an opportunity early and outmaneuvered Hoyer from the start, holding chummy Capitol Hill dinners to court colleagues as early as the summer of 1999.

When she incurred backlash for turning the ignition on an intraparty leadership race so early, she was unrepentant, noting the precedent-shattering nature of what she hoped to achieve by becoming the first – and still only – female congressional whip.

"In order to buck 200 years of history, if I have to start earlier than someone else, so be it," she told Roll Call at the time.

Former Rep. George Miller of California, a close friend of Pelosi's, remembers "a lot of men just talked right over her" when she first came to Congress, but that she banded together with other female legislators to make her mark. Rep. Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut recalls a group of them storming a committee chairman's office to pressure him to push for women to be included in clinical trials conducted at the National Institutes of Health.

"If you want to get in a fight with her, you better bring your lunch. She's fully informed and well-armed," Miller says.

By the time the vote for whip finally rolled around in the fall of 2001, Pelosi – given her connections to Silicon Valley and San Francisco – had raised more than double what Hoyer had for House Democrats while establishing her reputation as the "thank-you note queen." But it would be a mistake to pinpoint geography as the sole reason Pelosi has become the most prolific fundraiser in Congress. She also taps donors as thought partners and sources for policy feedback, a shrewd and ingratiating tactic that prompts money mavens to always answer her calls.

"When she comes to the house, she'll talk to you for two hours about the Affordable Care Act, going on and on about issues. And at some point, I'm like, 'Nancy, I have to go to bed,'" Mostyn says.

In the 2001 contest, she also brandished another quality Hoyer couldn't compete with: gender.

While being a woman remains a double-edged sword for her to this day – "It is not that women are better," she's said. "The beauty is in the mix" – it was undoubtedly important to members who wanted a face more representative of the party but also were frustrated by a lack of political progress in picking up seats. House Democrats gained just three seats nationally in 2000 but netted a total of five in California, which was seen as a result of Pelosi's savvy hand.

At that point, Miller recalls her musing: "You know what, I think we should organize. These boys don't know how to win."

Election Aftershocks

Nancy Pelosi attends the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee's election night party in 2006. (Jim Lo Scalzo for USN&WR)

Pelosi carried that same bullish attitude into the evening of Nov. 8, 2016, when she and most of the rest of the world expected Clinton to be elected the first female U.S. president.

"We will, of course, retain the White House with the election of Hillary Clinton," she told PBS' Judy Woodruff in an interview that took place just before results began trickling in.

After that appearance, Pelosi stopped to drop off flowers at a college roommate's house in Alexandria, Virginia, before retreating to the Capitol Hill home of Rep. John Delaney of Maryland to monitor the outcome. Once the shock and awe of the evening began to settle in, the minority leader decided against putting out a statement until after speaking with both Clinton and Trump by phone the next day. And as questions about the future of the Democratic Party ripped through the atmosphere, she knew that – suddenly – her own position would be tested once again.

Nine days later, Rep. Tim Ryan of Ohio, once a Pelosi mentee, announced his bid to dethrone her.

Ryan, an affable and ambitious 43-year-old congressman, was elevated by Pelosi during the 2006 campaign. As a member of her 30-Something Working Group, he received a prestigious speaking slot at the Democrats' victory party, along with Florida Reps. Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Kendrick Meek.

A decade later, Ryan sensed an opening. Yet Pelosi, publicly and privately, was largely unmoved by the challenge. Members approached her on the House floor, telling her not to bother working the phones. "Don't call, you're good," they'd say. Pelosi also consulted with Mostyn, who was so adamant she soldier on that he helped facilitate personal pleas from 20 top Democratic donors.

"When you're in rough water, you want a steady hand at the helm," Mostyn says. "Trump's rough water. I don't know anyone right now close to filling her shoes because of her relationships. There's considerable drop-off."

Because she has a habit of calling every member and candidate before and after every election, Pelosi already had a rough picture of how foreboding a fight she would face against Ryan. Whereas the legendary Democratic House Speaker Tip O'Neill would grant a member a firm three minutes in his office to ask for a favor before issuing an abrupt send-off, Pelosi is notorious for allowing someone to drone on for an hour in order to clear his or her head. Her staff consciously worries about the pace of her schedule, but she has been known to rebuke them if they attempt to pencil in breaks.

"You should know me by now: I don't do downtime," she admonished on a road trip during the 2006 cycle, according to a former adviser who traveled with her.

While Ryan built a respectable coalition of newer and younger members less indebted to Pelosi, he ran into her aura of inevitability and the likelihood she still would wield control over committee assignments after the dust settled. Plus, who could reasonably blame her for the Clinton collapse that weighed down a slate of down-ballot Democratic challengers?

"She didn't spend much time on it. She knew she had two-thirds [of the caucus vote] and that's all she cared about," the current Pelosi aide says.

As a potential candidate for governor of Ohio, Ryan also battled the perception that the leadership race was merely a highly visible steppingstone toward a statewide campaign, something Pelosi has never contemplated.

"She's never had any other aspirations," says John Lawrence, Pelosi's former chief of staff who spent a decade with her. "Her objective has always been completely on the House and completely on her members."

Pelosi defeated Ryan 134-63, netting 68 percent of the caucus but still suffering the largest defection of support of her 15-year leadership tenure. Republicans weren't all that surprised she managed to maintain her hold on power, but there was a gleeful licking of the lips that took place. After all, the premier target for GOP attacks over the last decade had signed on for another season.

"Pelosi today has spent more time in the minority as a leader than any other modern House Democrat," former GOP House Speaker Newt Gingrich needled during a January appearance at conservative think tank The Heritage Foundation. "And it just makes me feel warm."

Part of what explains Pelosi's longevity is her unapologetic loyalty to loyalty. She donated $12,000 to the primary opponent of longtime Rep. John Dingell of Michigan after Dingell supported Hoyer in the 2001 leadership battle. In 2006, rather than seek unity, she backed her friend, Rep. Jack Murtha of Pennsylvania, over Hoyer to be majority leader. And in 2014, she attempted to boost her home-state colleague and friend, Rep. Anna Eshoo, in Eshoo's quest to leapfrog Rep. Frank Pallone of New Jersey to be the top Democrat on the Energy and Commerce Committee.

The common thread in each instance: Pelosi's preference lost.

"Anytime she's tried to pick a friend, she never wins," notes the former adviser, who is still in contact with her. "She only wins when it is her."

The other pugilistic part of the Pelosi equation is her long, unforgiving memory. After Pelosi placed Wasserman Schultz onstage for a slice of national television time on the night of the party's 2006 midterm elections romp, the Florida congresswoman turned around and penned a "Dear Colleague" letter backing Hoyer, Pelosi's nemesis, for majority leader over Murtha.

An aide who worked in her office at the time recalls Pelosi being privately incensed.

"I elevated you to national status and handpicked you for a committee, and you do this to me?" she fumed to the aide.

A decade later, when Wasserman Schultz was struggling to weather a torrent of calls for her resignation as head of the Democratic National Committee, Pelosi let her twist in the wind.

"She never forgot," the former Pelosi aide says.

The Trump Test

President-elect Donald Trump greets House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as he arrives for his Jan. 20 inauguration ceremony on Capitol Hill in Washington. (Rex Features/AP)

Though she received campaign contributions from him in the past, Pelosi doesn't know Trump well and agrees with him on little. Yet given her reverence for the peaceful transfer of power and a hallowed event like the inauguration, she attended the new president's swearing-in, accompanied by her daughter Alexandra and two grandsons.

Before arriving at the Capitol Hill dais, the minority leader took aside the 9- and 10-year-old boys and instructed, "We do not boo the president. We're here and we show respect." The moment serves as a testament to her often-unseen grandmotherly touch and healthy preference for decorum, even in the most trying of circumstances.

Pelosi's public assessment of Trump, meanwhile, has been withering. She's dubbed him a "fearmonger" and "the deflector in chief," and called the opening days of his administration "a train wreck of fear, incompetence and broken promises."

After an initial White House meeting between Trump and congressional leaders, in which the president revived his unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud during the election, Pelosi phoned a confidante afterward and scoffed, "This coot is crazy!"

In late February, after she went on ABC's "This Week" and roasted Trump for a lack of accomplishments, he responded on "Fox & Friends" by calling her "incompetent." Later, amid the simmering controversy over his administration's connections to the Russian government, Trump posted a tweet calling for an investigation of Pelosi's "close ties to Russia, and [her] lying about it."

When alerted of Trump's tweet about her, Pelosi smiled approvingly and said, "I'm getting through to him."

There are, of course, limits to what Pelosi can do to thwart Trump's pursuits while helming a House minority with just 193 members. Right now, the biggest hurdle to the president's legislative success is divisiveness among Republicans; if the GOP can hold together, House Democrats essentially are neutered.

But Pelosi appears resolutely determined to protect the legislative accomplishments of her speakership, none of which is more personal than the crowning achievement of Obamacare, which Republicans have slouched towards unraveling in the early months of Trump's administration. The health care reform effort serves as the emblem of Pelosi's approach, marrying her pragmatic mind to her progressive soul, and some Democrats believe she deserves more credit for Obamacare than even the former president whose name it bears.

As the Obama White House took its shot at health care reform, chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, sensing land mines, suggested a piecemeal approach beginning with insurance coverage for children, which was viewed as more politically palatable.

"The White House was in touch with her about breaking it up into various pieces. She flat-out said no," DeLauro says. "Nancy Pelosi is responsible for passing the Affordable Care Act."

And as the House's initial landmark health care bill approached a vote in 2009, it was Pelosi who opened the door to the delicate compromise of the so-called Stupak Amendment, allowing moderate Democrats to place stringent restrictions on government funding for abortions under the newly proposed system. It was a significant concession permitted by Pelosi – a longtime champion of abortion rights – that held her fragile coalition together and saved the House bill, which cleared the chamber by a five-vote margin.

The early salvo and Pelosi's stalwart shepherding efforts were key to what eventually culminated in Obamacare.

"Nancy Pelosi is a master of finding the right moments to leverage the unity of the Democratic caucus, and during the whirlwind of the Affordable Care Act, she was reaching out to members 24-7, tracking down votes, doing the individual meetings to hammer out the disagreements," says Sen. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, an ally of Pelosi when he served in the House. "It's a moment that captured all of her strengths, and above all, her persistence."

Pelosi allies gripe that while former GOP House Speaker John Boehner was lauded for simply keeping the government open, the magnitude of what she accomplished – an economy-saving bank bailout (with President George W. Bush), the Dodd-Frank financial reform law, even a cap-and-trade climate change measure – hasn't garnered the respect it deserves.

Their frustration also is borne out of the realization that her achievements are likely only to wilt under Trump.

The Legacy

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi at a news conference on Capitol Hill in March. (Brett Ziegler for USN&WR)

The counterweight to the story of Pelosi's resilience is that her survival is indicative of the fog of uncertainty permeating a decimated Democratic Party.

Her Democratic detractors, all of whom required anonymity to speak freely, make the case that she's never been more irrelevant and less influential, and therefore can remain in power for now without much ado.

But they also concede she is not the optimal leader poised to help turn the page.

"In this role, in this moment, a Tim Ryan or somebody who represents the next generation would be valuable for Democrats. Nobody can deny that. You want someone out of the heartland who is reasonably charismatic," a longtime Democratic strategist says. "If Hillary were president, Democrats would be harder to wrangle and Pelosi's skill of keeping unruly Democrats aligned would be important. But here's the truth: Donald Trump is all we need to stay aligned."

Given the Trump earthquake, it's often forgotten that Democrats gained six House seats in 2016. Nonetheless, Pelosi still was forced to cede more power than she ever had before, democratizing choices for head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and a newly formed trio of party policy messengers rather than appointing them herself.

By the time 2018 rolls around, when Democrats look for gains in the midterms, there's some feeling that her cache will have ebbed even further, given that she's likely to remain a Republican punching bag. In February, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey measured her national favorability rating at just 19 percent, trailing House Speaker Paul Ryan by 15 points and Trump by 24 points.

"She can't go into rural communities, she can't go into Rust Belt communities. Can Nancy go into your district and help you? The answer is no for two-thirds of our members," a second Democratic congressman says.

While regaining the House is always the goal, the state of congressional districts drawn by partisan lawmakers and the deep Democratic deficit in the chamber make Pelosi's odds of recovering the speakership look like a far-fetched fairy tale. Barring a Democratic wave a la 2006, the party likely will be staring at minority status again heading into the next presidential election, raising the question of what rationale Pelosi can use to soldier on.

"There's no way she can withstand another election," says the senior Democratic House aide who does not work for her. "She'll lose the caucus fight in 2018."

In the meantime, Pelosi has ramped up her media appearances in order to keep pace and relevance vis-à-vis the camera-friendly Schumer, even as her allies know it isn't her forte.

"When Nancy is on TV, it doesn't come across. I don't think her skill is talking to a camera," Mostyn says.

Her daughter, Alexandra, says her mother's shaky communicative skills are a revelation to no one, including the lawmaker herself. The easy answer to explain why Nancy Pelosi is still trudging along, she says, is so she can "protect what she built in her time."

But then she exhales, pauses, and seems to acknowledge that it's also a reflection of a difficult inflection point for the party, and that her mother's goal now is to serve as a bridge until the next crop of leaders emerges. That could lead to a crossroads in 2018, when a flurry of fresh faces begins to test-drive White House challenges to Trump, and when the likes of 55-year-old Rep. Cheri Bustos of Illinois, 46-year-old Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York and 36-year-old Rep. Eric Swalwell of California may be ready to usher in a new generation of congressional leadership.

Pelosi allies contend, though, that a transfer of power would come only of her own volition.

"After you lose, there's a lot of unrest. She was probably the only one who could keep some of the members from going rogue. Once they pick themselves up and dust themselves off, I think more people will be interested in taking responsibility," Alexandra says.

She then dives into an instructive story about her mother's ability to gently guide unwilling parties in her preferred direction.

"I said I was never getting married and when I finally did, I said I wanted a potluck wedding at a Greenwich Village nightclub. And when I told my mom this, she calmly says, 'That's great. Well, you have to invite [your fiancé's] grandmother from Holland, and we'll want to have her stay in a nice hotel and we'll probably have to feed her a nice meal.' And suddenly, slowly but surely, she convinces me the potluck is a bad idea and I'm having this luxurious white wedding on Fifth Avenue like she wanted."

"She doesn't say it to your face like Donald Trump: 'You're not going to do this, this isn't going to work.' She says, 'Whatever you want, but I'd recommend this and maybe we can take a look at that.' It's a whole psychology of where she guides people where she wants them to be. She has a way to glue people together. So they need her."

It's Frost – the onetime Pelosi foe – who might be the best example of her power of conversion. When he initially challenged her for the minority leader post in 2002, he portrayed her politics as too far to the left to be Democrats' national standard-bearer. Even now, while Frost respects Pelosi's talents, he says the generation gap plaguing the party eventually has to be heeded.

"She was reelected this time because there was no obvious younger person to step in her shoes," he says. "At some point, you have to have a changing of the guard."

Yet Frost was noticeably averse to criticizing Pelosi personally, at least in part due to the quiet compassion she showed when his wife died during the height of the 2006 campaign. Kathryn Frost, a retired major general in the U.S. military, passed away in late August of that year. Pelosi not only attended the funeral at Arlington National Cemetery, but spent time at the officers club reception afterward as well.

Frost had retired from the House two years earlier; she'd never need his vote again. But in a town full of fleeting relationships, transactional encounters and short-term political calculations, Pelosi prioritized the personal.