How McCarthy won: Inside one of the most dramatic weeks in the House

The four-day, 15-ballot floor fight over whether Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) should get his gavel was the culmination of weeks of tension bubbling up from the House GOP’s right flank.

The threat to his Speakership first came into focus on election night, escalated through battles over House and GOP conference rules and ended with a whirlwind, late-night vote on the House floor.

The Speakership fight illustrates fault lines in the party that could impact policymaking for years to come.

Here’s how the Speaker fight went down.

Election night

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) talks to reporters as he leaves the House floor after the House voted to adjourn for the evening as the House met for a third day to try and elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Preparing for a big midterm win, McCarthy had invited the press to join him at a hotel bash in downtown Washington, D.C., where he was expecting to deliver an early victory speech. 

It didn’t happen. 

The resiliency of vulnerable Democrats meant that control of the House was too close to call that evening, and the stunning results forced a disappointed McCarthy to address the sparse crowd at almost 2 a.m.

The ultimate slim, four-seat majority created the opportunity for the House GOP’s right flank to make its strongest move in years, and nearly keep McCarthy from the gavel. 

The confrontational House Freedom Caucus had been pushing for rules changes for months, having released a list of demands in July. Now, with a slim majority, they had the leverage to extract some concessions.

Conservatives press for election delay

Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) heads to the House Chamber for votes on Tuesday, January 10, 2023.

The first step in that process was to cast doubts on McCarthy’s primacy by pushing to delay the GOP leadership elections until the midterm dust had settled.

“People haven’t come to Washington, D.C., because they don’t know if they’ve won their races yet,” Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), chairman of the Freedom Caucus, said three days after the elections. 

GOP leaders would ultimately ignore those pleas, staging the internal leadership elections even before control of the House was formally determined. 

Biggs announces run

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) right, talks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) during the tenth vote in the House chamber as the House meets for the third day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Less than 24 hours before the Republicans’ closed-door balloting, Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), a former chairman of the far-right Freedom Caucus, announced that he would challenge McCarthy for the party’s Speaker nomination. 

“We have a new paradigm here, and I think the country wants a different direction from the House of Representatives,” Biggs told Newsmax at the time.

It was a long-shot bid — one that never had any real chance of succeeding — and McCarthy prevailed easily, 188 to 31, in the Nov. 15 secret ballot, where just a simple majority determined the victor. 

But Biggs’s challenge was effective in the sense that it revealed McCarthy remained a long ways from securing support from the majority of the full House — 218 votes — which he would need to win the Speaker’s gavel in early January. 

Fears of moderates working with Democrats

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) talks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the House chamber as the House meets for a second day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Wednesday, Jan. 4, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Members of the House Freedom Caucus started to fracture on McCarthy’s Speakership.

Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.), once a McCarthy critic, became one of his fiercest supporters. She warned that moderate Republicans could work with Democrats to elect a less conservative Speaker than McCarthy. 

Those fears gained steam after Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) told NBC News that he was open to working with Democrats to coalesce around a consensus candidate, assuming McCarthy could not win the gavel after multiple ballots.

Rumors of a consensus alternative continued to swirl, with Democratic Rep. Ro Khanna (R-Calif.) expressing openness to the prospect, but none ever emerged.

Members coming out to oppose McCarthy

Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) speaks with Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as the House votes to adjourn following the fourteenth ballot for Speaker on Friday, January 6, 2023. (Greg Nash)

By the end of November, five House Republicans explicitly said or strongly indicated they would not support McCarthy for Speaker.

Reps. Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Matt Rosendale (Mont.), Bob Good (Va.), Ralph Norman (S.C.) and Biggs became known as the “Never Kevin” group. Those five members alone could keep McCarthy from the Speakership, assuming all members voted for a specific candidate.

McCarthy started getting more publicly vocal about his Speakership troubles, warning Republicans not to “play games” on the House floor.

December squabbles

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is seen during the third day of the 118th session of Congress on Thursday, January 5, 2023. (Greg Nash)

With McCarthy’s path to the gavel in danger due to conservative opposition, members of the GOP conference were getting frustrated with the “Never Kevins,” with some even creating buttons that said “O.K.” for “Only Kevin” in response.

Members of the Republican Governance Group, a caucus of more centrist Republicans formerly known as the Tuesday Group, released a Dec. 1 letter in support of McCarthy that urged opponents to “put posturing aside” and elect McCarthy to be Speaker. On Dec. 7, members of the Main Street Caucus, a group in favor of “pragmatic” governance, also released a letter urging unified support for McCarthy.

Despite the threats, some McCarthy supporters remained optimistic that he could win the gavel on the first Speaker ballot, brushing off opposition as “saber-rattling.”

The uncertainty about the Speakership led the House GOP Steering Committee, a panel of around 30 members and leaders that makes committee assignments, to delay making selections for contested chairmanship seats – including for the power Ways and Means gavel. 

A group of seven members withholding support for McCarthy, who would all be part of the group of 20 members opposing him in floor votes, listed their desires from a Speaker in a Dec. 8 letter: Require just one member to move to vacate the chair; ban leadership from getting involved in primaries; increase the number of House Freedom Caucus members in chairmanships and on the House Rules Committee; use “must-pass” bills to leverage spending concessions; and create a “Church Committee”-style panel to target “weaponized government,” among other items.

Through the lame-duck congressional session, McCarthy held meetings with a group that he jokingly called the “Five Families,” bringing together leaders of the various ideological groups to discuss rules changes and priorities. 

McCarthy accepted some suggestions, like requiring 72 hours from release of final bill text before a vote on the floor. He took a strong stance against the omnibus spending package that passed late in the year, blaming Senate GOP leaders for not blocking new government funding until after the GOP took the House majority, and pledged to bring up 12 regular appropriations bills individually as Speaker. But none of the holdouts moved.

First rules package offers some concessions, but not enough

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) is seen following the second ballot for Speaker during the first day of the 118th session of Congress on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. (Greg Nash)

McCarthy offered key concessions to his conservative holdouts in the rules package released on New Year’s Day.

It included a critical victory for the conservative detractors — a promise to create a “Select Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government,” addressing the calls for a “Church-style” committee. And in another concession, it lowered the motion to vacate the chair down from at least half the GOP conference to five members. McCarthy separately indicated he would boost the number of conservative hardliners on committees. 

But the positives did not outweigh the negatives for Perry and his allies, who wrote a letter warning that “expressions of vague hopes reflected in far too many of the crucial points still under debate are insufficient.” They called for a one-member threshold to vacate the chair and noted that McCarthy did not address a request to stay out of open primaries.

Tense conference meeting

House Republican Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., speaks to reporters as he pursues the Speaker of the House role when the 118th Congress convenes, at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, Jan. 3, 2023. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)

The first day of the Speaker election on Jan. 3 started on a fiery note for House Republicans, with the conference’s 90-minute closed-door meeting going off the rails just hours before the first ballot began.

During the gathering in the Capitol basement, McCarthy delivered a passionate final pitch on why he believed he was the best person to serve as the next Speaker. But the speech, in which he claimed he had “earned” the job, was not well-received among his conservative opponents. Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-Mont.) said McCarthy “lied” to members during his address.

“This morning’s conference meeting was a complete disaster, and it hardened people and expanded the no votes,” Roy told reporters that night at the Capitol.

Floor battle begins

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) votes for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the House chamber as the House meets for the fourth day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Friday, Jan. 6, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Nineteen Republicans voted against McCarthy on the first ballot for Speaker, demonstrating the uphill battle the GOP leader would face in his quest to secure the gavel – and surprising even some of the “Never Kevins.” On the third ballot, Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) joined the defectors, bringing the group to 20 members.

Speculation ticked up over whether incoming House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) could become Speaker if McCarthy dropped out.

But McCarthy was adamant he would never withdraw, and as McCarthy’s defectors cycled through alternative Speaker candidates — including Biggs, Donalds, former President Trump, and Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) — no serious alternative ever emerged.

McCarthy allies team up, work on a deal

Rep. French Hill (R-Ark.) nominates Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for the eleventh time in the House chamber as the House meets for the third day to elect a speaker and convene the 118th Congress in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 5, 2023. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

After the failed ballots, McCarthy allies — including Reps. Patrick McHenry (N.C.), French Hill (Ark.) and Garret Graves (La.) — asked him how they could help bring the conference together. They became key negotiators of final concessions with the holdouts that eventually secured the Speakership for McCarthy.

McCarthy maintained a happy face as he emerged from an office near the House floor the night of Jan. 3, and suggested that there was a path to the gavel if he could win over at least 11 detractors and get the other nine to vote “present.”

On Jan. 4, negotiations seemed to make real progress. Roy, Perry and Donalds, among other detractors, met with McCarthy allies in incoming House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s (R-Minn.) office. 

“We’re having ongoing conversations, they’ve actually been more productive in the last two hours than they’ve been in a long time,” Roy told reporters between the fifth and sixth ballots.

More concessions emerge 

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with Rep. David Schweikert (R-Ariz.) following the seventh ballot for Speaker on the third day of the 118th session of Congress on Thursday, January 5, 2023.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a McCarthy-aligned super PAC, announced a major concession on Jan. 4: It would no longer spend in safe open Republican primaries. In return, the Club for Growth — a conservative group that had opposed McCarthy’s bid — agreed to support him for Speaker. 

Details of an offer from McCarthy to the detractors emerged that night: McCarthy would lower the threshold to vacate the chair to just one member, a move he had long resisted. More hard-line conservative members would get seats on the House Rules Committee, which controls how bills are debated on the floor. McCarthy would bring a vote on a bill to impose term limits on members of Congress, and a vote on a border security bill.

But Perry lashed out about those details being leaked to the press, and some of the fiercest McCarthy critics warned they would never vote for him to be Speaker. 

Failed ballots for McCarthy continued as negotiations dragged on before the House voted to adjourn after the 12th vote on Thursday, Jan. 5.

McHenry later said that when Gaetz voted in favor of adjourning that time, he knew that McCarthy would eventually get over the finish line.

House Republicans held a conference call the morning of Jan. 6 to discuss details of a tentative agreement, but stressed that nothing was final.

At noon, McCarthy showed major progress on the 11th and 12th ballots, flipping 14 of his defectors to support him. The House adjourned to allow talks to continue, and give two McCarthy allies who were absent in the morning — Reps. Ken Buck (Colo.) and Wesley Hunt (Texas) — time to travel back to Washington and push him over the finish line.

Dramatic late-night roller coaster on final two ballots

Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) speaks with Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) during the fourteenth ballot for Speaker on Friday, January 6, 2023. (Greg Nash)

When the House returned at 10 p.m. for the 14th ballot, McCarthy allies were hopeful, but felt uneasy.

Emotions were high, and members were exhausted. One member described a pungent odor of alcohol, cigar smoke and clothes that people had been wearing for nearly 18 hours. 

With six remaining holdouts, McCarthy needed a combination of present votes and votes for him to secure the Speakership.

As the clerk went down the roll, Boebert voted present, in a surprise to some who had expected her to vote for McCarthy on that ballot. Gaetz did not respond on the first call of his name, and the four other holdouts — Good, Rosendale, Biggs and Crane — voted for other candidates. 

It all came down to Gaetz. McHenry sat next to him, in an intense conversation, later telling reporters that Gaetz was wanting to adjourn until Monday, hoping the four remaining holdouts would get to the point that they could vote present.

When the clerk returned to call his name, Gaetz voted present. Some Republicans on the floor cheered, in apparent confusion about the Speakership math and not realizing Gaetz put McCarthy one vote shy of winning the gavel.

McCarthy allies tried to convince Gaetz to vote for him and end the spectacle, arguing first that the holdouts had gotten every concession that they possibly could get, according to a person familiar with the discussion.

Then they tried a sympathy appeal. Freshman Hunt had flown back for the vote, leaving his wife and premature newborn son in the hospital. Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) was set to leave for his mother’s funeral the next day. Rep. Roger Williams’s (R-Texas) wife was hospitalized after experiencing a stroke, according to Greene.

Good, one of the four remaining holdouts, later said he was also surprised that McCarthy did not win on the 14th ballot.

McCarthy got up from his seat and went to talk to Gaetz, who appeared unmoved by the conversation.

Anger on the floor

Rep. Michael D. Rogers (R-Ala.) is taken away from Reps. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) and Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.) following the fourteenth ballot for Speaker on Friday, January 6, 2023. (Greg Nash)

As McCarthy walked away, Rep. Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) angrily came up and confronted Gaetz, reportedly saying that he would end Gaetz’s career. Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) pulled Rogers away, with his hand slipping over Rogers’s face.

Greene at one point called up Trump and asked for his help, holding her phone up to Rosendale to try to get him to talk to the former president.

“Matt Rosendale blew up, yelled at me, and screamed at me, ‘Don’t you ever do that to me Marjorie. Don’t you ever do this,’” Greene later said.

McHenry moved to adjourn until Monday. But just as the fight looked as if it could drag on to the next week, McCarthy’s fate changed.

“It just became increasingly clear to me that it was only a matter of time — there was no path to defeating Kevin McCarthy for Speaker,” Good later told The Hill. “The situation had just become untenable, the emotions of the moment — and I didn’t feel like it was healthy to sustain it unnecessarily for the weekend.”

Good went up to the remaining holdouts, and they decided to have one more vote and all vote present, ending the Speaker battle. 

Gaetz informed McCarthy that they wanted to do one more vote, but 218 Republicans had already voted electronically to adjourn. McCarthy and his whip team rushed to get members to give physical cards to change their vote, flooding the Well of the House on the floor.

On the 15th ballot, all four remaining holdouts moved to vote present, and McCarthy clinched the Speakership.

“There’s a lot of unpacking to do on what happened, because a lot happened,” McHenry told reporters after leaving the floor in the wee hours of Jan. 7. “A week happened in an hour on the House floor.”