In the 2022 midterm elections, the Republicans secured a majority in the lower chamber of Congress; the House of Representatives.
With this victory, the House Republicans now had to vote for the Speaker of the House, and ultimately the one who would set the rules and agendas for the 118th Congress. Kevin McCarthy was the obvious frontrunner, but now, with a very narrow majority, his leadership was in jeopardy from the more right-wing, or conservative, members of his party.
On Jan. 3rd, the worst possible outcome formed. McCarthy did not have enough votes to be recognized as speaker, with 20 Republican house members rejecting the idea to vote for McCarthy and instead casting their votes for other members of the House, such as Jim Jordan and Byron Donalds.
This process shook the American political realm, being the first time since 1923 that such a phenomenon has taken place.
Although McCarthy was able to secure a vote to be the House Speaker, this was only able to happen after the 15th ballot, lasting four days and greatly weakening the influence that McCarthy has over the rest of the House Republicans.
This delay at the beginning of the 118th Congress sprouts many questions from both the American public and political analysts alike; how strong will McCarthy’s congress be in these two years?
“What we see happening here is factionalism within the Republican party”, said Dr. John Holder, professor of political science. “It seems that a portion of the Republicans do not trust Kevin McCarthy to lead as the speaker, and this is a problem when 20 members of your own party do not trust you.”
Although the list of members contained House Republicans considered very conservative or far right like Matt Gaetz of Florida and Lauren Boebert of Colorado, it also included those who are considered more moderate within the Republican Party like Chip Roy of Texas and Ralph Norman, who represents South Carolina’s 5th district. They argued against McCarthy on the basis of him not having enough fiscal responsibility.
“I feel like there were multiple reasons why Kevin McCarthy had not won the speakership in one ballot, but the main reason was due to the Republican infighting with members like Boebert and Gaetz”, said Hari Kommamuri, a member of the College Republicans.
“At first, this was frustrating to see, but it showed that we need to have members of the party disagree with each other, which can help the GOP move forward.”
Even with last week’s chaos, it seems that everything has calmed down for the time being after McCarthy’s election.
This outcome, however, demonstrates that everything is not as stable for the Republican house as the party anticipated, and only time will tell whether this was a one-time occurrence or the beginning of a much more chaotic trend throughout the political sphere.
