Following some fighting, cursing, and speechifying over the course of three separate votes, Kevin McCarthy failed to hit the 218 Republican votes needed to win the top House post, prompting the House to adjourn for any more ballots until Wednesday afternoon. McCarthy, who was formally nominated on the floor Tuesday by the third-ranking House Republican, Elise Stefanik, could afford to lose only four GOP votes with all members participating. But the caucus of right-wing holdouts expanded instead of contracting Tuesday. The biggest question remaining: Can the top Republican still manage to back into the speakership he’s coveted for the better part of a decade now? Or will he be denied the gavel a second time?

The California Republican, who has seemingly been in line for the gavel since his party won a thin House majority in November, has been in an 11th-hour scramble to secure enough votes from his party—an embarrassing predicament for a man who had been leading the GOP minority. But he’s been arguing against a brick wall, with a gang of even-further-right “Never Kevin” holdouts having vowed to derail his bid. On Tuesday, as the math got worse for McCarthy in the hours before lawmakers cast votes, he raged at his conference opponents in a closed door meeting: “I earned this job,” he told Republicans, per Politico. “We earned this majority. And God damn it, we are going to win it today.” 

His detractors had other ideas, casting first ballot votes for alternatives like Jim Banks and Andy Biggs. “Kevin McCarthy had the opportunity to be Speaker of the House,” House Freedom Caucus Chair and strident Donald Trump ally Scott Perry said in a statement Tuesday, calling his colleague’s overtures “vague.” “He rejected it.”

“Here we are, being sworn at instead of sworn in,” Lauren Boebert, another anti-McCarthy stalwart, told reporters after the GOP conference meeting Tuesday. (Boebert voted for Jim Jordan to become speaker.) “Those of us who will not be voting for Kevin McCarthy today take no joy in the discomfort this moment has brought,” added Matt Gaetz, another holdout,  “But if you want to drain the swamp, you cannot have the biggest alligator in charge of the exercise.” 

The holdouts aren’t exactly negotiating in good faith, as Boebert claimed, and they do seem to be enjoying themselves, contrary to what Gaetz said. But it is true that Kevin McCarthy is reaping what he sowed: In his naked ambition as House minority leader, he courted the far-right that is now standing in his way, seemingly believing he could contain them. That same fringe has now successfully blocked him from a first ballot victory, and he can only hope that some change their minds after losing his first ballot—or that enough vote present to lower the threshold for victory. 

Still, even if McCarthy prevails, he has already, in some ways, lost. In his desperation to get the gavel, McCarthy has appeared to make a series of extraordinary concessions to the hard right flank of the House GOP. Some of them, like his vows to investigate Biden officials and dismantle political guardrails put up by Democrats, probably weren’t too difficult for McCarthy to make, given his own vindictive brand of politicking. But others were surely less palatable. McCarthy was especially opposed to one measure that would make it much easier for them to oust him as speaker. If such concessions end up being the price of the gavel, it could render McCarthy perhaps the weakest speaker in recent memory—more handcuffed by the most extreme members of his party even than John Boehner, who spent the tail end of his leadership battling the Tea Party insurgency within his own party. 

It’s a dilemma that is already proving embarrassing for McCarthy, and it speaks to the utter chaos the Republican-controlled House is likely to bring in the New Year. It also underscores how extreme this caucus has gotten over the last eight years. When he was up for the speakership in 2015, he was forced to drop his bid after comments acknowledging the political nature of the Benghazi probe into Hillary Clinton. Now, his designs on the gavel could be foiled by members who explicitly want him to use the majority to hurt Joe Biden and other foes politically. 

You might be asking yourself why would someone would even want to lead this circus? For McCarthy, it’s always come down to ambition. He has no firm beliefs, as evidenced by the hollow “Commitment to America” agenda he released in September. So for him, it’s no big deal to make policy concessions. He also doesn’t seem to care about the disorder in his party, as long as he gets to take the gavel from Nancy Pelosi. Even before a vote was cast, McCarthy began working out of the speaker’s office—a symbol, to some critics in his party, that he feels entitled to power. He ought to enjoy the feeling now, because he’s likely to find that a win might only save him a move to a different office.

Eric Lutz

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