Kind of irrelevant what her reasoning is. It’s a bad and stupid move politically. People are frustrated with the dems and are disengaging. They need change in leadership if they want to remain relevant. Pelosi and her ilk are out of touch and will run the country into the ground if they don’t step aside.
AOCs competitor is very well liked, even by AOC, and the caucus is roughly cut in half. It's a vote, let's see what happens. Pelosi gave up the leader role, but that doesn't mean every chair is up for grabs.
My defense,if you can call it that, is that she's paying back a political favor to Gerry Collins who is running against AOC. That is the way the House and political favors work. You may not like it, but I assure you AOC does it to.
16 committee chairs are chosen every congress. The Republican caucus leaders choose theirs. The democratic caucus elects theirs, with the Dem leader playing a large role in aligning per senority. This year, Jeffries has decided to stay out of it giving the opportunity for younger congresspeople to take additional responsibilities. So essentially there is an internal campaign going on right now and the caucus will vote later. It has nothing to do with the election for the representative in the first place.
Two separate things. But whatever the case you have to be a member of the caucus in order to vote for committee chair and that means you already won your district.