Nancy Pelosi has a simple message for Democrats running for Congress this fall: “Just win, baby.”

The House minority leader said Democrats running in conservative House districts across the country should do what they must to win – including running against her.

“I think if they have to do that to win the election, I’m all for winning,” Pelosi said in an interview with Politico Playbook on Tuesday. “I think many of them are saying we need new leadership. I don’t take offense at that.”

Pelosi, who served as the first female speaker of the House from 2007 to 2011, has increasingly become a target for Republicans as more visible party leaders such as Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton receded from the public spotlight.

Already this year Republicans have spent millions of dollars in attack ads and messaging focused on Pelosi. Republicans seized on her comments that corporate bonuses of $1,000 paid to workers from the $1.5tn GOP tax plan amounted to “crumbs” and have hammered Democratic candidates by accusing them of being Pelosi acolytes.

“I have made some very powerful enemies,” Pelosi said, explaining how she became a liberal bogeyman for the Republican party..

Republicans “don’t say we’re against her because she passed healthcare reform, or because she took on Wall Street,” she said. “They say she’s [from] San Francisco. Yes. She’s liberal. Yes. She’s pro-LGBTQ. Yes. You will be, too. It’s just a matter of time.”

A recent Washington Post-ABC poll found 32% of Americans had a favorable view of her while 44% had an unfavorable view. But the poll also found just 17% of voters say a candidate’s views on the Democratic leader will be “extremely important” in their vote.

There are signs that an anti-Pelosi strategy is a gamble for Republicans. In a recent Pennsylvania special election, Republican organizations spent millions of dollars on TV advertising and campaign material tying Democrat Conor Lamb to the House minority leader, derisively attacking him as “Pelosi’s little Lamb”. Lamb, who vowed early that he would not support Pelosi to lead House Democrats, won the race in a stunning upset by less than 1,000 votes.

Weeks later, Republican Debbie Lesko won the special election in a deeply conservative district of Arizona by only six points. Like in Pennsylvania, Republicans cast the Democrat, Hiral Tipirneni, as Pelosi-style liberal. Tipirneni, who is running again for the seat in November, would not commit to supporting Pelosi for speaker in an April interview with the Guardian.

During the roughly 45-minute Politico interview at the Liaison Hotel in Washington, Pelosi dismissed calls for impeachment of Donald Trump as a “distraction” from Democrats’ economic message, which she admitted was already struggling to break through.

“Impeachment, to me, is a divisive issue,” Pelosi said, “unless there’s something as conclusive as what we saw in Watergate. That was inevitable. That was bipartisan.”

She continued: “You can talk about it in your districts. In my district, it’s a very popular issue. But it takes attention away from the connection we need to make to people about their economic security.”

Pelosi said she had planned to step aside as leader after Hillary Clinton won the election. But when Clinton lost, Pelosi said she felt compelled to remain in the role so that there was a “woman at the table”.

“That became very important to me, that there would be a woman at the table where these decisions are negotiated,” she said.

Despite calls for Pelosi – and the whole bench of Democratic leaders – to step aside and allow a new generation to assume power, she has so far resisted. On Tuesday Pelosi defended herself as a prolific fundraiser and a “legislative virtuoso”.

“I say this because I want women to take pride in what they are,” she said.

When asked what she would do if Democrats did not regain control of the House, Pelosi demurred.

“I can’t even think of not winning,” she said. “You have to believe.”