In the midterms, Republican voters made it clear: they expect more constructive solutions and fewer mud fights from their party. But the chaotic election as speaker shows how powerful the right wing of the Conservatives is.
Kevin McCarthy initially made a good face about the bad game on Tuesday.
After the disappointing midterm elections in November, the Republicans also failed to get the new legislative period off to a good start. Despite weeks of negotiations, the wafer-thin majority of conservative MPs cannot agree on the election of a speaker in the House of Representatives. Also on the second day of the elections and after the fourth round there is no speaker. Kevin McCarthy, the main Republican candidate, even lost ground on Wednesday and received 202 votes, one fewer than in the last ballot the previous day.
In the first vote on Tuesday, longtime parliamentary group leader Kevin McCarthy clearly missed the necessary majority of 218 votes. While all 212 Democrats were united behind their candidate Hakeem Jeffries, McCarthy received only 203 votes. 19 right-wing Republicans wanted a different speaker. In the second and third ballot, too, the hurdle remained too high for McCarthy.
On Wednesday morning (local time), former American President Donald Trump also intervened. In a message on his social network “Truth Social”, he advocated that the Republicans in the House of Representatives should show unity and elect Kevin McCarthy as the new speaker. The ex-president’s appeal is primarily aimed at a number of staunchly conservative Trump supporters in the Republican faction, who refused to support McCarthy on Tuesday.
For Republicans, Tuesday’s events were a historic shame. For the past hundred years, the House of Representatives has elected the Speaker in a single round. The last time this was not the case and there was a “floor fight” was in 1923. All other difficult speaker elections in the history of the American Congress date back to before the Civil War.
The resistance is personal
It was already clear early in the morning that it would come to this on Tuesday. At the meeting of the Republican faction before the plenary session, there are said to have been heated discussions and insults. McCarthy had been the right wing of his party extensive concessions have already been made. Among other things, he promised MPs like Marjorie Taylor Greene and Paul Gosar on the fringes of the party influential positions on congressional committees. In addition, McCarthy is said to have approved parliamentary investigations into the President’s son Hunter Biden and into the role of the FBI and the Justice Department in the processing of the storm on the Capitol. And he was also apparently willing to lower the hurdle for a no-confidence vote against him to just 5 MPs.
By making such concessions, McCarthy was, in principle, already holding himself hostage to the right wing of the party. In the early afternoon (local time) it seemed completely unclear what else he could offer his opponents in his own party so as not to offend the moderate Republicans at the same time. McCarthy therefore appeared to be using a tactic of attrition, voting until the last Republican rebel caved in. Because even if the Californian missed the necessary majority in three ballots, there was initially no alternative candidate who could unite the party and get more votes. And without the election of a speaker, the House of Representatives and thus the entire Congress cannot function. In the long run, according to McCarthy’s calculations, the blocking minority cannot afford to take responsibility for it.
On Tuesday, however, the impression grew that many right-wing Republicans did not want to vote for McCarthy on principle because they distrusted him. For many years, McCarthy has dreamed of chairing sessions in the House of Representatives, Speaker’s gavel in hand. The Republican representative from California has subordinated everything to this goal. No political contortion seemed too unprincipled for that. After the storming of the Capitol on January 6, 2021, he blamed Donald Trump and spoke in private conversations for the immediate resignation of the President. Shortly thereafter, however, he made a U-turn, visited Trump at his residence in Florida and has since turned himself in faithfully behind him.
Bad omen for 2024
The majority of Republicans followed their party leadership and also supported Trump. However, that loyalty didn’t pay off in November’s midterm congressional elections. Despite high inflation and poor poll numbers for Democratic President Joe Biden, Republicans only won a wafer-thin majority in the House of Representatives and even lost a seat in the Senate. In important swing states such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona and Georgia lost Trump candidates the elections for key Senate seats or the office of governor. The signal was clear: Moderate Republicans and swing voters in the swing states want an end to the shrill Trump era with its endless mud fights and baseless allegations of rigged elections.
Paradoxically, however, the poor result in the midterm elections strengthened the right wing of the Republican Party in the House of Representatives. In order to be elected, McCarthy needs the majority of the votes of the MPs present. If all appear, that is 218 votes. However, the Republicans only have a wafer-thin majority of 222 to 212 seats over the Democrats. One seat is vacant due to a death. Five Republicans alone can therefore shatter McCarthy’s long-awaited dream. It must have felt like déjà vu for the 57-year-old. In 2015 McCarthy withdrew his candidacy for speaker, because he lacked the votes. Now he seems to want to fight the power struggle with the right wing to the bitter end. However, after there was no way out of the mess after the third ballot early on Tuesday evening, the pressure on McCarthy to throw in the towel could increase.
For the Republicans, this false start to the legislative period is also a bad omen for the 2024 presidential elections. Donald Trump wants to run again. But a majority of Americans despise him, as do the right wing Republicans who are driving the moderate conservatives before them.