Republican Kevin McCarthy suffered another humiliating defeat Friday night, after not being elected Speaker of the House of Representatives in a historic 14th round of voting.
McCarthy appeared poised to seize the president’s gavel earlier in the evening, after convincing a large number of party rebels to back his bid to lead the lower house of Congress. But he ultimately lost by the narrowest of margins, after four fellow Republicans voted for alternate write-in candidates and two others voted “present.”
McCarthy appeared visibly upset by the result, and in a last-ditch effort reached out to Florida’s Matt Gaetz and Colorado’s Lauren Boebert before voting officially closed. Gaetz and Boebert voted “present” rather than for McCarthy, a technicality that deprived him of the simple majority needed to become president.
Earlier Friday, McCarthy told reporters on Capitol Hill, “I’ll have the votes.” When asked why he was confident, the California congressman replied, “Because I count.”
McCarthy set the bullish tone after making several rounds of concessions to his critics, including changes to rules that would make it easier to call a no-confidence vote on a future president and promises of plum committee assignments for members of the Ultra-conservative chamber. Freedom Caucus.
Those efforts swayed more than half of the 20 Republicans who had opposed him for president in previous ballots, including Dan Bishop of North Carolina and Byron Donalds of Florida. But they did not persuade enough Republicans to hand McCarthy the victory that has eluded him for four days and counting.
You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive chart. This is likely because you are offline or because JavaScript is disabled in your browser.
Bob Good, a Republican from Virginia who has been among the dissenters, told the FT on Friday morning that he would not support McCarthy “at any time”.
“The whole reality is that he doesn’t have 218, he won’t have 218, and the sooner he surrenders to that reality, the sooner we can move forward as a conference and start debating and evaluating and evaluating. . .[alternative]candidates”, he said.
Republican lawmakers pray in the House before another round of votes © Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA/Shutterstock
Good said he would like to see Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, as chairman, but suggested other members should nominate Steve Scalise, Republican of Louisiana and a member of the House Republican leadership, as a possible candidate . “There are members who support him, I think they should put his name forward, nominate him and vote for him.”
recommended
Although McCarthy had made major concessions in recent days, there was a significant lack of “confidence” in his willingness to follow through, Good said.
“He doesn’t believe in any of the things he agrees to do, so he would do them just out of force because he’s desperate,” Good said.
The last time it took more than one round of voting to select a president was in 1923, when nine ballots were needed. The House is constitutionally required to select a speaker and cannot move on to any legislative business until someone receives the gavel.
Republican infighting has exposed long-standing tensions in a party that is struggling to move forward after a relatively disappointing showing in November’s midterm elections.
You are viewing a snapshot of an interactive chart. This is likely because you are offline or because JavaScript is disabled in your browser.
McCarthy is in a difficult position, in part because the “red tide” he and others predicted failed to materialize, and Republicans now control the House by a razor-thin margin.
The gridlock in the House has also raised questions about how Congress will function over the next two years, and whether McCarthy or any other president will be able to fight the warring factions of the party to pass any legislation.
A looming threat is the possibility of a debt ceiling crisis later this year. Economists have forecast that the US economy is at risk of default in the third quarter if lawmakers do not agree to raise the limit on government borrowing.