(Bloomberg) — Kevin McCarthy confronts an unexpectedly complicated path to becoming the next speaker of the US House after the midterm election delivered only a slim and fractured Republican majority in which many members are more loyal to Donald Trump than himself.
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The California Republican, who was majority leader, the chamber’s No. 2 post, from mid-2014 to 2019 and minority leader since, faced a challenge from the right in his bid this week to become the party’s nominee to replace Speaker Nancy Pelosi. McCarthy cleared that first hurdle when House Republicans voted 188 to 31 to reelect him as their leader. But the speaker vote in January requires at least 218 votes — a majority of the entire 435-seat House.
“Democrats’ One-Party rule is OVER,” McCarthy, whose allies say they are confident he will prevail, tweeted late Wednesday.
Republicans gained the minimum 218 House seats needed to claim the House majority after a California races was called late Wednesday, over a week after Election Day with only a handful of races still to be decided. Democrats held on to Senate control, with the contest in Georgia headed to a December runoff.
Those results fall well short of major Republican gains that had been forecast. McCarthy, facing a restive caucus, can’t afford many defections or splintering of colleagues’ support when the vote for speaker is held in the full House in January.
The major question will be whether McCarthy continues to have the backing of the former president, who has fashioned himself as a Republican power broker. Trump’s standing in the party took a hit with the Republican losses in the midterms, though the full impact remains to be seen as he launches his third bid for the White House.
He told reporters after a pre-election rally in Ohio that he supports McCarthy for the speakership. But Trump’s view of the man he once called “my Kevin” has vacillated, particularly after McCarthy criticized him amid the Capitol insurrection last year. He also in the past has readily shed allies who no longer serve his purposes or can be blamed for failures.
GOP Representative Guy Reschenthaler of Pennsylvania said McCarthy will have no problem being elected as speaker.
“We won the majority this cycle. McCarthy led us through the wilderness and now we’re going to give him the gavel,” Reschenthaler said. “He’s the best strategist, best recruiter, best fundraiser we have. We’re not changing generals.”
McCarthy has engaged in a multi-year effort to cultivate his party’s right wing. Still, it will be a challenge to manage vocal Trump loyalists in GOP caucus, including firebrands like Georgia Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who are more focused on extracting revenge by investigating the Biden administration than legislating.
Greene on Monday said she backs McCarthy for speaker in the name of keeping the party unified. But some other far-right Republicans have said McCarthy won’t ultimately have 218 votes among Republicans.
McCarthy, 57, laid out a broad populist agenda in September that he said Republicans would pursue if they control the House. It nods to traditional GOP objectives such as cutting spending and exploiting domestic energy supplies. It also reflects a party shaped in the image of Trump, with an emphasis on crime, border security, parental control of schools and battling alleged censorship of conservatives by technology companies.
Republicans will be able to stymie President Joe Biden’s agenda, but it will be difficult for them to initiate major policy changes, given that the Senate remains in control of Democrats. Instead, they will be setting the table for the Republican agenda going into the 2024 presidential election.
One area where their influence will be felt is spending. McCarthy and Republicans are promising to cut the government’s budget, and could force a government shutdown next year over Internal Revenue Service tax audit funding in particular. They are also discussing using the nation’s debt ceiling as a bargaining chip to cut entitlements.
Any request for more aid to Ukraine also will get more scrutiny. While McCarthy so far hasn’t joined calls from some in the party to cut back, he’s said there will no longer be a “blank check” for Ukraine assistance.
Brendan Buck, who was an aide to former Republican Speaker Paul Ryan, said a narrow majority will create difficulties for the GOP.
“They will have a very hard time doing even the most basic legislating if the margin is only a handful,” Buck said. “It will be a light load on the floor generally and Democrats will start from a position of enormous leverage on the must-pass bills.”
Another potential complication for McCarthy is that members of the House Freedom Caucus — which now numbers about 30 representatives, including some of Trump’s most devoted allies — are pressing for changes in rules on how the House works and to give individual lawmakers more power.
Factional infighting has forced turnover in Republican House leadership in the past. Threats from conservatives prompted Speaker John Boehner to abruptly retire in September 2015. Ryan, who was Boehner’s successor and had a contentious relationship with Trump, decided not to seek re-election in 2018. McCarthy dropped out of the 2015 contest for speaker because opposition from within the Freedom Caucus.
Ryan said on a recent podcast hosted by two former Republican staffers that McCarthy and House Republicans should keep in mind that “the real prize” is taking control of Congress and the White House after the 2024 election.
“The question is can you channel this energy to good policy making, good policy ends, to a coherent majority that offers the country, you know, a coherent choice? Or, are we just going to be wrapped around the axle on culture wars?” Ryan said.
Working in McCarthy’s favor is his skill at what Ryan called “the inside game” of managing the caucus, as well as the goodwill he’s built up with his prolific fundraising for GOP candidates.
McCarthy has tried to carefully balance the competing factions in the party. At the September announcement for the GOP plan named “Commitment to America” McCarthy was flanked by colleagues representing a wide swath of the House GOP, from Greene to New York Representative John Katko, one of 10 House Republicans who voted to impeach Trump after the insurrection at the US Capitol and didn’t seek re-election.
He has made concessions to his far-right contingent by refusing to sanction some of their most outspoken members for their inflammatory comments. Greene has said she expects McCarthy to restore her committee memberships stripped by Democrats after she promoted conspiracy theories about the Sept. 11 attacks among other events.
McCarthy will likely now have to engage in negotiations with conservatives in his conference, including over rules changes that could allow them to steer the agenda.
The Freedom Caucus sent out a “road map” for incoming GOP House members, discussing “realities” of serving in Congress and urging them to “restore true Republican government.”
The caucus chair, Representative Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, indicated in a cover letter that the group won’t be shy about pushing back against McCarthy.
“Some will urge you to be a ‘team player’ by falling in line with leadership and doing what you’re told,” Perry wrote. “You’ll be warned not to ‘rock the boat’ by raising questions or concerns about the leadership agenda.”
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