Chaos on the House floor late Friday evening after a 14th vote appeared to have resulted in Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., falling short of becoming its next House Speaker. Several holdouts remained in the vote, including Reps-elect Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., who voted for Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; Eli Crane, R-Ariz., who voted for Biggs, and Matt Rosendale, R-Maryland, who voted for Biggs.Reps-elect Lauren Boebert, R-Colorado., and Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., both voted “present.”
Washington , DC The U.S. House of Representatives entered its fourth day of voting to elect a new speaker on Friday, falling on the grim two-year anniversary of the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
The U.S. House left Thursday for a third night in a row without a speaker — the longest the chamber has gone leaderless in a century — after GOP leader Kevin McCarthy lost an 11th vote and scrambled to work out a deal with a group of 20 far-right Republicans who have blocked his bid for the top job in the House.
While Thursday’s late-night negotiations yielded 15 new votes for McCarthy on Friday, it still wasn’t enough to clinch the speakership. The House voted at about 3:30 p.m. ET to adjourn until 10 p.m. after McCarthy lost with 213 votes in the 12th and 214 votes in the 13th round of votes. The extra time will allow two Republicans who were out of town time to return to the Capitol to presumably vote for McCarthy.
Support for McCarthy dwindled over the first three days of voting from 203 votes on Tuesday to 200 by the 11th vote on Thursday, falling far short of the number needed to win the speakership. He needs support from more than half of lawmakers present in the chamber to vote. With 222 Republicans in the House, he can only afford to lose a handful of votes.
All 212 Democrats have unanimously backed House Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies for each vote, except the 12th vote in which one member was out for a minor surgery.19 MIN AGO
McCarthy needs to flip at least two votes
McCarthy has been working all day to flip at least two out of about a half dozen key GOP holdouts.
Freshman Rep. Eli Crane of Arizona, who McCarthy hoped to win over, voted for Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona. Sophomore Rep. Matt Rosendale of Montana was most likely to switch his vote for McCarthy or to drop his opposition by voting present, four people familiar with the vote told NBC News.
Colorado Rep. Lauren Boebert, who previously asked McCarthy to withdraw his nomination, told FOX News earlier Friday “we’ll see where tonight goes.” She dropped her opposition to McCarthy by voting “present.”
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, who appeared on Fox with Boebert, similarly wouldn’t say how he would vote. He told Fox he’s “running out of stuff to ask for” and called McCarthy the “Speaker-Designate.”
McCarthy needs to win over more than half of the lawmakers who are voting in person on the floor, so at least 216 or 217 votes, depending on how many lawmakers made it back to the Capitol. With 214 votes in the last ballot, he needs to flip at least two lawmakers.
NBC News
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.