Republican California Rep. Kevin McCarthy failed to ascend to the House Speakership through three rounds of voting on Tuesday, with his intraparty opponents coalescing around Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan
McCarthy again received 203 Republican votes, and incoming House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York again received all 212 Democratic votes during the second ballot. All 19 Republicans who voted against McCarthy on the first ballot supported Jordan, who gave an impassioned speech in favor of the Californian ahead of the second. (RELATED: Speaker Vote Heads To Second Ballot For First Time In 100 Years)
“The differences we may have, the differences between Joyce and Jordan or Biggs and Bacon, they pale in comparison to the differences between us and the left which now, unfortunately, controls the other party,” Jordan said in a floor speech. “I came in with Kevin. We came in the same time 16 years ago. We haven’t always agreed on everything. But I like his fight, I like his tenacity. I remember Kevin told me, wrote about this in a book. I remember Kevin told me, the toughest times in life are when you get knocked down. The question is, ‘Can you come back?’ and I have always seen him be able to do that.”
Same 19 Republicans all opposed McCarthy again on the second ballot, this time all voting for Jim Jordan https://t.co/LaamCkOQJq
— Alayna Treene (@alaynatreene) January 3, 2023
“Sometimes we have to do jobs that we don’t really want to do. And sometimes we have to do jobs that we are called to do. And so my colleagues, I rise to nominate the most talented, hardest working member of the Republican conference, who just gave a speech with more vision than we have ever heard from the alternative. I’m nominating Jim Jordan. Jim Jordan is humble. Perhaps today, humble to a fault. Maybe the right person for the job of Speaker of the House isn’t someone who wants it so bad. Maybe the right person for the job of speaker of the House isn’t someone who has sold shares of themselves for more than a decade to get it,” Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz responded.
On the third ballot, Florida Rep. Byron Donalds voted for Jordan, making him the first member to flip an initial McCarthy vote. The 2023 Speaker vote is the ninth to go more than three votes. The pro-McCarthy faction is prepared to keep voting for as long as it takes to make him Speaker, Florida Rep. Carlos Gimenez told the Daily Caller.
“I’ve never had experience with this, and I don’t think many of these people have,” he said. “I’m voting only for Kevin.”
This is a breaking news story and will be updated as more information becomes available.