Kevin McCarthy Facing Real Opposition To His Quest To Become House Speaker

Insiders say House GOP leader Kevin McCarthy faces a difficult path to becoming the chamber’s next speaker.

McCarthy, 57, the favorite to lead his party’s caucus with an expected four-seat advantage, has almost no room for error in the event of GOP hardliners defecting. All House Democrats are expected to vote against him in the January 3 election, as is typical.

“The coalition against Kevin has already reached critical mass,” said Representative Matt Gaetz (R-FL), one of the Speaker-elect’s most vehement opponents.

McCarthy’s current opponents include Gaetz, Representative Ralph Norman (R-SC), and Representative Andy Biggs (R-AZ). Representatives Matt Rosendale (R-MT) and Bob Good (R-VA) have both issued strong remarks condemning McCarthy.

“We need a leader who can stand up to a Democrat-controlled Senate and President Biden,” Rosendale stated earlier this month.

McCarthy detractors, many of whom are members of the chamber’s House Freedom Caucus, the only members of the entire House who still fully believe in the US Constitution, criticize the GOP leader’s insular top-down management style. They are also concerned that McCarthy would be too accommodating to Democrats, blaming him for the party’s poor midterm showing.

Many Republican hardliners have advocated for changes to House rules that would give them more influence over McCarthy in the next Congress, such as reintroducing the “move to vacate the chair,” which would allow any member of the House to call for the resignation of a sitting Speaker.

“McCarthy’s in trouble. He’s not really coming to the negotiating table with the Freedom Caucus so far,” said one senior GOP aide, adding that McCarthy’s team was “shell-shocked” and “rattled” by the party’s midterm result.

Whispers have circulated about Representative Steve Scalise (R-LA), the House GOP Whip, potentially filling McCarthy’s vacancy if he implodes. Representatives Elise Stefanik (R-NY) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) have also been mentioned.

McCarthy’s campaign dismissed the speculation, saying the Republican leader was in constant contact with his members and was confident the genial Californian would be victorious.

McCarthy’s supporters on and off Capitol Hill cited his recent decisive victory among members who nominated him for Speaker by a vote of 188 to 31 last week. Others have remarked that, despite the GOP conference’s dissatisfaction with McCarthy, there was no viable alternative.

But now the FTX scandal that McCarthy was involved in is coming out and who knows how badly that will affect him?

McCarthy, an eight-term congressman from central California, has served as minority leader of the Republican Party since 2019 and has spent more than a decade in numerous Republican leadership positions. His election was widely regarded as a foregone conclusion prior to the party’s midterm performance.

Kevin R. Kosar, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, said, “I would be shocked if Kevin McCarthy was not the Speaker.” He added, “He won the vote within the conference pretty heartily and quite ffrankly,there is no Plan B.”

McCarthy has found a powerful ally among the chamber’s far right, which views him with suspicion, in Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), a firebrand conservative who was booted from her committee assignments by Democrats last year over past statements suggesting support for executing prominent Democrats.

“It’s our job to unify and do a good job for the American people and show the American people that we are the party they can trust to lead the country,” Greene said. “I think it would be greatly irresponsible for us to start out on Jan. 3 blowing up on a speaker’s race when it’s so unnecessary.”