McCarthy Scrounges for Votes on 2nd Day of Speaker Fight
The House continued a historic floor showdown — the first in a century — prompted by the Republican leader’s failure to secure a majority to become speaker.
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Representative Kevin McCarthy speaks to reporters in the Capitol while they film in on mobile phones.
Representative Kevin McCarthy, Republican of California, speaking to reporters late Tuesday evening in the Capitol. “I’m staying until we win,” he said.Credit...Kenny Holston/The New York Times
Catie Edmondson
By Catie Edmondson
Jan. 4, 2023
Updated 2:26 p.m. ET
WASHINGTON — Representative Kevin McCarthy of California grasped on Wednesday for the votes he needs to become speaker after failing four times to win the post, as Republicans slogged through a second day in control of the House without a leader and appeared deadlocked on how to move forward amid a hard-right rebellion.
Mr. McCarthy’s successive defeats on Tuesday marked the first time in a century that the House had failed to elect a speaker on the first roll-call vote, and it was not clear how or when the stalemate would be resolved. His allies abruptly called to adjourn the House, and the G.O.P. leader attempted to regroup.
But on Wednesday, after the House reconvened, Mr. McCarthy lost a fourth ballot on the same margins as the third, with 20 defectors this time throwing their support behind Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, the first Black man ever to be nominated by Republicans for the job. Representative Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who had previously supported Mr. McCarthy, voted “present,” a move that deprived him of a badly needed vote but impeded him less than had she voted for another lawmaker.
The fourth-ballot vote signaled that Republicans were far from breaking the deadlock that has paralyzed the chamber, even after a direct appeal from former President Donald J. Trump, who had endorsed Mr. McCarthy but stayed silent on Tuesday throughout his humiliating series of defeats on the House floor.
“Some really good conversations took place last night, and it’s now time for all of our GREAT Republican House Members to VOTE FOR KEVIN,” Mr. Trump wrote in a social media post on Wednesday morning, after a Tuesday night call with Mr. McCarthy. He beseeched Republicans to avoid an “embarrassing defeat.”
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“Kevin McCarthy will do a good job, and maybe even a GREAT JOB — JUST WATCH!” Mr. Trump added.
The endorsement failed to move a single defector in Mr. McCarthy’s direction. With a fifth vote underway, the Republican leader and his allies still were working behind closed doors trying to secure the votes.
For now, a mutiny waged by ultraconservative lawmakers who for weeks have held fast to their vow to oppose Mr. McCarthy has paralyzed the chamber at the dawn of Republican rule, delaying the swearing in of hundreds of members of Congress, putting off any legislative work and exposing deep divisions that threatened to make the party’s House majority ungovernable.
Mr. McCarthy has vowed not to back down until he secures the speakership, raising the prospect of a grueling stretch of votes that could go on for days.
“I’m staying until we win,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters between the second and third votes on Tuesday. “I know the path.”
House precedent dictates that members continue to vote until someone secures the majority needed to prevail. But until Tuesday, the House had not failed to elect a speaker on the first roll-call vote since 1923, when the election stretched for nine ballots.
It was not clear how long it might take for Republicans to resolve their stalemate this time, or whether Mr. McCarthy’s had a strategy for coming back from an embarrassing series of repudiations. His supporters suggested he was willing to drag out the process for some time, recognizing that his political career was on the line, after he tried and failed once before — in 2015 — to position himself for the speakership.
“I think that Kevin knows that this is his last shot, and so he’s going to play this as long as” he can, said Representative Ken Buck of Colorado, who voted for Mr. McCarthy three times on Tuesday. “He withdrew once so that he would have this chance. He’s not going to have this chance again.”
No viable challenger has emerged, but if Mr. McCarthy continues to flounder, Republicans could shift their votes to an alternative, such as his No. 2, Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana.
On Tuesday, right-wing Republicans coalesced behind Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, as an alternative to Mr. McCarthy, but Mr. Jordan, a onetime rival who has since allied himself with Mr. McCarthy, pleaded with his colleagues to unite instead behind the California Republican.
But hard-right lawmakers have so far refused to do so. The failed votes on Tuesday showed publicly the extent of the opposition Mr. McCarthy faces. With all members of the House present and voting for a named candidate, Mr. McCarthy needs to receive 218 votes to become speaker, leaving little room for Republican defections since the party controls only 222 seats.
He fell short again and again on Tuesday, drawing no more than 203 votes — far below a majority and fewer than the votes received by Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the Democratic leader whose caucus remained united behind him. By Wednesday, Mr. McCarthy’s support had eroded; he won 202 votes.
Emily Cochrane and Annie Karni contributed reporting.
Catie Edmondson is a reporter in the Washington bureau, covering Congress. @CatieEdmondson
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