Republican Kevin McCarthy and his allies are getting creative — and desperate — in assembling the coalition he needs to win the speakership in the face of opposition from conservative hardliners.
(Bloomberg) — Republican Kevin McCarthy and his allies are getting creative — and desperate — in assembling the coalition he needs to win the speakership in the face of opposition from conservative hardliners.
McCarthy, whose quest to become speaker enters its third day, needs a majority of the House members present and voting to get the job. If all 434 members vote, that means he need to 218 to win. The most votes he’s received in six ballots is 203.
But there’s a loophole — if some members vote “present,” instead of selecting a specific candidate, they aren’t included in the denominator of McCarthy’s must-win majority fraction. That effectively lowers the number of total votes McCarthy needs to win.
The last-ditch effort to get some Republicans to vote present is an explicit acknowledgment from McCarthy allies that there are some members of their party who can’t be persuaded to support him under any circumstances.
But voting present would allow those members to still say they didn’t vote for McCarthy, while ending the stalemate over who should be speaker. The House can conduct no business — including swearing in members — until a speaker is elected.
Here’s a look at where the totals have landed in the most recent rounds of votes:
- McCarthy: 201
- Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries, backed unanimously by Democrats: 212
- Representative Byron Donalds, the current candidate backed by the McCarthy opponents: 20
- Present: 1, cast by Republican Representative Victoria Spartz in protest of the process
That leaves Jeffries, a Democrat, with the highest vote total, but short a majority of all votes for a candidate required to win the speaker job.
After discussions with some of the Republican holdouts late Wednesday and agreeing to make it possible for a single Republican to call for a vote to remove a speaker, people familiar with the talks think it’s possible that 11 of the 20 dissidents will shift their support to McCarthy. That, combined with Spartz’s vote, who backed McCarthy in earlier rounds of voting, would total 213 votes.
Here’s a breakdown of the math McCarthy and his team are pursuing:
- McCarthy: 213
- Jeffries: 212
- Present: 9
Convincing the remaining nine holdouts to drop their opposition to McCarthy and essentially neutralize their vote will be a hard sell. It would require a truce between McCarthy’s most ardent opponents, including Representatives Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who have increasingly become more hostile toward McCarthy in recent days. They have vowed to never back McCarthy. Convincing them to vote present is a long-shot and would likely require many more hours, if not days, of negotiations, if it’s even possible.
Alternatively, Boebert and Gaetz could vote against McCarthy if Republicans get three more to back him:
- McCarthy: 216
- Jeffries: 212
- Other: 2
- Present: 4
The House reconvenes Thursday at noon for the third day of voting. The House will either vote on a motion to adjourn or on the seventh speaker ballot, the only two things the speaker-less House can do.
–With assistance from Billy House.
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