WASHINGTON, Jan 3 (Reuters) – Republican Kevin McCarthy vowed on Tuesday to stay in the race to be the powerful speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, hours after hardliners in his party repeatedly blocked his candidacy to lead its new majority.
In the first day of what could turn out to be a brutal showdown between about 20 hard-liners and the other 202 members of the Republican caucus, McCarthy fell three ballots short of the 218 votes needed to become president, a second-place role after the Oval. Office after the vice president.
It was a jarring start for the new Republican majority and highlights the challenges the party could face over the next two years, heading into the 2024 presidential election. Its slim 222-212 majority gives greater leverage to a small group of hardliners, who want rule changes that would give them greater control over the speaker and more influence over the party’s approach to spending and debt.
Late Tuesday, McCarthy told reporters that former President Donald Trump had called him and reiterated his support. Trump has endorsed McCarthy in the race and remains a powerful figure in the Republican Party.
McCarthy, 57, of California, knew he faced an uphill battle heading into Tuesday’s vote and had vowed to keep pushing for votes. But the chamber voted late Tuesday to postpone until noon ET (1700 GMT) Wednesday, a move that would give Republicans time to discuss other candidates.
Conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, 58, of Ohio won 20 votes in the day’s final vote, short of the 218 threshold to become speaker but enough to stop McCarthy.
“I think Kevin knows this is his last chance,” said Rep. Kenneth Buck, who had voted for McCarthy. He noted that McCarthy previously tried in 2015 to become speaker and failed in the face of conservative opposition, adding: “He won’t get that chance again.”
A drawn-out speaker election could undermine House Republicans’ hopes of moving quickly on investigations of Democratic President Joe Biden and his administration, and legislative priorities including the economy, US energy independence and border security .
The top Democrat in the chamber, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, bested McCarthy on all three votes. In the final count of the day, Jeffries led McCarthy by 212 votes to 202. A majority of voters, not a plurality, is needed to determine a speaker.
A showdown would leave the House largely gridlocked and could force lawmakers to consider another Republican nominee. In addition to Jordan, incoming Majority Leader Steve Scalise, 57, of Louisiana, was seen as a possibility.
The last time the House did not elect a Speaker on the first ballot was in 1923.
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[1/10] U.S. House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) is surrounded by reporters after a House Republican caucus meeting on the first day of the 118th Congress at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, U.S., January 3 of 2023. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein
Jordan himself had spoken in support of McCarthy before he was nominated, and all three times they voted for him.
“We must rally around him,” Jordan had said in an impassioned speech in the House. “I think Kevin McCarthy is the right man to lead us.”
Jordan is a staunch Trump ally and a co-founder of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
A former college wrestler, Jordan is preparing to oversee the House Judiciary Committee’s investigation into the Justice Department and the FBI under Biden.
McCarthy’s hardline opponents worry that he is not sufficiently invested in the culture wars and partisan rivalries that have dominated the House, and even more so since the Trump years in the White House.
Before the vote, McCarthy tried to persuade the unemployed during a closed-door party meeting, promising to stay in the race until he got the necessary votes, but many participants left the meeting undeterred.
McCarthy suggested to reporters later Tuesday that the path to becoming speaker was for members to vote “present” — neither for nor against him — which would lower the threshold needed to secure the work
McCarthy has spent his adult life in politics: as a congressional staffer and then a state legislator before being elected to the House in 2006. As a speaker, McCarthy would be well-placed to thwart Biden’s legislative ambitions.
But any Republican speaker will have the tough task of managing a House Republican caucus that drifts ever to the right, with uncompromising tendencies and, at least among some lawmakers, a close loyalty to Trump.
Struggles with the party’s right flank cut short the careers of the last two Republican speakers, with John Boehner stepping down in 2015 and Paul Ryan opting not to run for re-election in 2018.
The record number of rounds of voting to elect a Speaker of the House is 133 over a two-month period in the 1850s.
Democrats chose Jeffries as minority leader after Nancy Pelosi, the first woman to serve as speaker, announced she would step down from her leadership role. He will continue in office as representative.
Reporting by David Morgan, Moira Warburton and Gram Slattery; additional reporting by Richard Cowan and Makini Brice; Editing by Scott Malone, Alistair Bell, Will Dunham and Howard Goller
Our standards: the Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Gram Slattery
Thomson Reuters
Washington-based correspondent covering campaigns and Congress. Previously published in Rio de Janeiro, Sao Paulo and Santiago, Chile, and has reported widely throughout Latin America. Co-winner of the 2021 Reuters Journalist of the Year Award in the business coverage category for a series on corruption and fraud in the oil industry. He was born in Massachusetts and graduated from Harvard University.