Kevin McCarthy fails to win House speaker role after historic three voting rounds

Kevin McCarthy, after a weekend of making concessions to gain support for becoming speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, has failed to win the majority of votes he needed after an historic three rounds of ballots.

The House plans to return at noon Wednesday to continue the search for a speaker. McCarthy was well short of the 218 he needed in all three ballots, and his opposition showed no signs of budging.

The multiple ballots were only the second time since the Civil War that the House need more than one ballot to pick the House’s presiding officer.

A handful of far-right Republicans publicly blamed McCarthy, 57, for a subpar midterm performance instead of the predicted “red wave,” landing the GOP with a slim majority.

With only 222 Republicans in the House, McCarthy could only stand to lose the support of four GOP colleagues, since no Democrats were expected to back him. Nineteen Republicans opposed him on the first two ballots and 20 were against him the third time.

To become speaker, the candidate needs a majority of votes: 218 if all members-elect are present. If there are vacancies, or members skip the vote or they vote “present” rather than for a candidate, that 218-threshold shrinks. The speaker does not have to be a member of Congress. The House cannot function until the speaker is chosen through rounds of voting; members can’t even be sworn in.

The Bakersfield Republican has eyed the speakership since before he fell short of it in 2015.

But McCarthy’s opposition would not break for him in the first two rounds votes; he was thwarted by the same forces when he was on the brink of the speakership before. The House now goes into another ballot.

McCarthy supporters were adamant that he had gone far to please his critics.

“He’s accommodated just about everything you would need as far as what one set of folks is asking for,” said Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Richvale.

Fighting any further over the speakership would be “a waste of people’s time who sent us here,” LaMalfa said.

McCarthy met with House Republicans Tuesday morning before the speaker vote. He offered a fiery defense of his bid, insisting he had earned the job.

GOP lawmakers were “overwhelmingly supportive this morning,” said Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas. “When McCarthy said, “What more do you want?’ one of the objectors could not answer that question, which i thought was very telling.”

McCarthy’s first failed speaker bid

The House Freedom Caucus, a coalition of roughly three dozen ultra-conservatives, has long felt that the chamber’s GOP leaders were too beholden to corporate and moderate interests.

They tried, and succeeded, to block McCarthy from ascending to speaker in 2015. He was the favorite then, the number two House Republican, but the caucus made demands he just would not endorse.

McCarthy also stirred controversy, telling an interviewer that the GOP-run committee looking into the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attacks were aimed at hurting Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential effort. McCarthy would apologize, but a lot of Republicans remained angry.

McCarthy shocked observers by dropping out on the morning of the vote, seeing no chance of getting 218 votes and saying that even if he did, he would have a rough time leading the Republicans.

This time, McCarthy tried to stop that sort of rebellion by making sure Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, one of the leaders of the opposition, was on his side. So was the current number two Republican, Louisiana’s Steve Scalise, who ran against McCarthy eight years ago.

Most importantly, McCarthy embraced former President Donald Trump. In 2015, Trump, then a presidential candidate, suggested McCarthy was not tough enough to lead the House.

But about three weeks after the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, he visited Mar-a-Lago, was photographed with Trump, and received the former president’s support.

McCarthy’s career

McCarthy is Bakersfield born and bred and represents California’s new 20th Congressional District. His constituents viewed his ascension to speaker as an opportunity to amplify voices on issues related to the San Joaquin Valley, including water access, air quality, homelessness and health care.

The 20th, redrawn through the once-a-decade process of redistricting, is staunchly Republican. The Central Valley’s most oddly shaped congressional district, the 20th captures Millerton and Clovis in its top arm and extends out to Lemoore in a second arm. It runs south to Rosamond then stretches west to hold Maricopa and half of Bakersfield in a third arm. Clovis and a sliver of Fresno around Fresno State also fall in the district.

He won his 2022 election with more than 67% of the votes.

McCarthy has never had a tough election since he first ran for Congress in 2006. He quickly rose to the GOP’s third in command as the majority whip in 2011, and became majority leader in 2014. When Democrats took over the House in 2019, he became minority leader.

He earned degrees from California State University, Bakersfield, when he started working for former Republican Congressman Bill Thomas. He was on staff for 15 years before he joined the California State Assembly in 2002. McCarthy was the Assembly’s minority leader for his final two years in that office.

When Thomas retired from Congress, he endorsed McCarthy to take his seat. Thomas later criticized McCarthy for not immediately accepting the results of the 2020 election and failure to fully publicly remand Trump for the insurrection.