WASHINGTON — Colorado Democrat Ed Perlmutter said Monday that he has decided to support Ohio congressman Tim Ryan in his upstart bid to unseat Nancy Pelosi as the top Democrat in the U.S. House of Representatives.

Perlmutter, recently re-elected to his sixth term, said he had nothing against Pelosi or current leadership, but the results of the Nov. 8 election — which saw Hillary Clinton lose swing states such as Ohio and Pennsylvania to Donald Trump — were enough to convince him a change was needed.

“Let’s not go back to the status quo here,” Perlmutter said in an interview. “That’s not taking anything away from Nancy Pelosi or Steny Hoyer or Jim Clyburn. They’re my friends, they’ve assisted me. They’ve been supportive of me. But as a general proposition, we need a change.”

Frustration against Pelosi has mounted in the weeks since the election — to the point where House Democrats took the unusual step of postponing their leadership elections to the end of November, a move seen as a setback for Pelosi, D-Calif., and her 14-year reign.

Into the vacuum has stepped Ryan, a veteran lawmaker who said a key reason he is running is because of Democrats’ chronic inability to capture the House.

“Over the last 18 years, Democrats have only been in the majority of the House of Representatives for two terms,” he wrote in a letter to colleagues. “We have lost over 60 seats since 2010. We have the fewest Democrats in state and federal offices since Reconstruction.”

Perlmutter said Ryan’s home of Ohio and age — he is 43 to Pelosi’s 76 — both could offer a different perspective as a Democratic Party pushed to the coasts tries to regroup.

“Where he lives is key. And his youth is key. It’s geographic. It’s demographic and I think you’re going to see a more populist expression from him,” Perlmutter said. “He would be good in terms of talking to some people who feel the Democratic party hasn’t listened to them enough.”

For now, Colorado’s other two House Democrats aren’t saying much.

Asked about her preference, U.S. Rep. Diana DeGette, D-Denver demurred.“I’m not making any public comments on the leadership election right now,” she said. “Suffice to say, I’m talking to Nancy and I’m also talking to Tim Ryan and other others about how we go forward as a party.”

U.S. Rep. Jared Polis, D-Boulder, did not immediately respond to requests for comment.