WASHINGTON — House Democrats on Wednesday rejected appeals that they need new leaders to win back disaffected voters, re-electing Representative Nancy Pelosi of California to an eighth term as House leader over a Rust Belt congressman who said the party had lost its connection to the American working class.

Ms. Pelosi’s victory over Representative Tim Ryan, a 43-year-old congressman from a blue-collar district anchored in Youngstown, Ohio, ensures that the party will be led in the next Congress by the established “coastal” Democrats who have increasingly defined it — Ms. Pelosi, 76, who represents San Francisco, and Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, 66, who has held various leadership posts since 2005.

The leadership elections, conducted by secret ballot behind closed doors, stamped out calls for new leaders. But while Ms. Pelosi won, 134 to 63, Mr. Ryan’s significant share of the total served as a measure of internal discontent and in some ways a repudiation of Ms. Pelosi’s leadership.

“I think there’s a lot of soul-searching,” said Representative Carolyn B. Maloney of New York. “And a lot of really wanting to have a plan.”