WASHINGTON — House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy fell short of the necessary number of votes to succeed California Democrat Nancy Pelosi as speaker in the first three rounds of balloting Tuesday.
McCarthy, also of California, became the first majority party leader in a century to fail to secure the speakership on the first ballot. He failed to win any additional votes on a second ballot and lost support on the third ballot, as Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., switched his vote from McCarthy to Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio.
“The reality is Rep. Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the votes,” Donalds tweeted after the vote concluded. “I committed my support to him publicly and for two votes on the House Floor. 218 is the number, and currently, no one is there. Our conference needs to recess and huddle and find someone or work out the next steps.”
The repeated failure to elect a speaker is a clear sign of the divisions in the Republican Party. It is also a potential blow to California. If McCarthy prevails, Congress will hand off power and influence from a California Democrat to a California Republican. If he doesn’t, both leaders could be relegated to the back benches — one by choice and the other by force.
Nineteen Republicans voted for candidates other than McCarthy on the first and second ballots. Twenty Republicans voted for Jordan on the third ballot, leaving McCarthy 16 short of the 218 votes needed to secure the post he has long sought.
Although Tuesday’s first-round outcome wasn’t a surprise, the fact that McCarthy and his allies were not only unable to move a single vote his way in subsequent ballots but ultimately lost ground was shocking — and potentially fatal to his diminishing path to the speakership.
The House speaker election hasn’t required multiple ballots on a floor vote since 1923, when then-Rep. Frederick Gillett, R-Mass., was elected on the ninth ballot.
Rep. Steve Scalise’s, R-La., nomination did nothing to improve McCarthy’s vote totals in the third round. Nor did Jordan‘s nomination in the second round, despite the respect he’s earned from the party’s conservative wing as a co-founder of the ultra-conservative House Freedom Caucus.
“I think Kevin McCarthy’s the right guy to lead us. I really do, or I wouldn’t be standing up here giving this speech,” Jordan pleaded to colleagues in his nominating remarks. “Kevin told me the toughest times in life are when you get knocked down. The question is can you come back. And I’ve always seen him be able to do that.”
It’s not clear, however, that McCarthy can come back from three failed roll call votes — particularly without moving the needle even a single degree in his direction. Shortly after Jordan nominated McCarthy, Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., sitting just steps away from McCarthy, rose to nominate Jordan instead. Conservative Republicans who had voted for alternatives in the first round of balloting voted in unison the second time around for Jordan and picked up slightly more support for him in the third round.
A small number of conservative Republicans had for weeks vowed to oppose McCarthy on the floor when the new Congress convened, even as he continued to negotiate with members and make concessions on rules changes. That figure ballooned to 20 by the third roll call. How the weeks-long stalemate between the majority of the House Republican Conference and the growing pocket of conservative antagonists will be resolved remains unclear after three rounds of votes.
At noon, when the 118th Congress formally convened, officials were seen removing the metal detectors that Pelosi had installed outside the floor in the aftermath of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol. But by the time the second roll call completed shortly after 3 p.m., the chamber still lacked new leadership.
The House's failure to elect a speaker on the first ballot would throw into chaos the beginning of a divided government in Washington, delaying the swearing-in of members of the House as well as votes on the rules that will govern the new Congress.
The splits within the GOP were evident even before the roll was called. Gaetz, Reps. Bob Good of Virginia and Andy Biggs of Arizona remained seated as most Republicans stood and applauded New York Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nominating speech for McCarthy.
Democrats, in contrast, were in complete unity as Rep. Pete Aguilar of California stood up to nominate Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who has little chance of becoming speaker in a House Republican majority. Rep. Paul Gosar of Arizona later nominated Biggs for speaker, to muted applause in the chamber.
On the other side of the Capitol, Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., celebrated a historic feat of his own, delivering floor remarks to commemorate his new record as the longest-serving leader in the upper chamber.
Although Republicans lost the White House in 2020, the Senate in 2021 and a Senate seat in the 2022 midterms, McCarthy has guided House Republicans to gains in the previous two cycles. He has traveled the country raising huge sums of money and tying himself closely to former President Donald Trump, who himself has been unable to persuade conservative members of the House to back McCarthy for speaker, a powerful post that would put him second in line to the presidency behind Vice President Kamala Harris.
House GOP candidates fell far short of expectations last cycle, leaving the party with a razor-thin 222-212 majority over Democrats until the late Rep. Donald McEachin, D-Va., is replaced in a special election later this year, likely by the Democratic nominee. And Democratic leaders are already bullish on their prospects for taking back control of the chamber in 2024.
McCarthy handily won an internal House Republican Conference vote for speaker in November against Biggs, by 188-31. The full GOP leadership slate elected in November included Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana as majority leader, Tom Emmer of Minnesota as majority whip, Stefanik as conference chair and Richard Hudson of North Carolina as chair of House Republicans’ campaign arm, the National Republican Congressional Committee.
Only the speaker’s post requires a full vote of the House, during which the winning candidate must receive a majority of all members present and voting. If McCarthy can’t secure enough votes, it’s not clear who could win enough support for speaker, though some Republican members have floated the possibility of working with Democrats to elect a moderate speaker.
The chaos on the House floor only feeds into Democrats’ narrative that House Republicans are incapable of governing.
After the House chaplain’s prayer — and before the roll call votes for speaker commenced — reporters seated above the House floor in the gallery heard Rep. Juan Vargas, D-Calif., say, “Let the show begin.” And during his vote, Rep. Ruben Gallego, D-Ariz., cast his vote for the “current vote leader,” Jeffries.
“The 118th Congress has yet to begin and Americans are already seeing how dysfunctional and disastrous GOP control of the House is going to be,” Rep. Suzan DelBene of Washington, chair of the the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — House Democrats’ campaign arm — said in a statement. “While House Republicans fight one another in unprecedented ways, and Kevin McCarthy gives into the most extreme flanks of the Republican party in desperate plays for their support, Democrats are clear minded, unified and eager to get to work for the American people.”
