Some like him, some don’t.
Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will face two factions a little more than a week from now, when Republicans pick out a new speaker of the House. He’ll need 218 votes to wield the gavel, but there will be only 222 Republicans in the chamber, meaning he can lose just five.
And wouldn’t you know it? Five GOP lawmakers have already announced that they won’t vote for McCarthy. Rep. Bob Good (R-VA) says there are upwards of 20 members in the Never Kevin movement.
Should the five follow through and actually vote against McCarthy, the whole process will be thrown into turmoil. Another group of Republicans is quietly working behind the scenes to find a replacement everyone can support.
The Only Kevin group is much larger, the Daily Beast reports.
“Dozens of GOP lawmakers, from moderates to MAGA loyalists, have said they will only vote for McCarthy for Speaker, no matter how many rounds of votes it takes. If followed, that commitment to respond to hardball with hardball would basically ensure no other Republican comes close to the gavel,” The Beast reported.
“The people that are supportive of Kevin, which are far more numerous than his critics, are dug in at least as deep as his critics are,” Rep. Tom Cole (R-OK), a supporter of McCarthy, told The Beast. “The pressure won’t be on them. It’s gonna’ be on the people that brought down the whole edifice — for what? For what purpose? What end?”
Good, however, scoffed at Cole’s declaration. “That’s funny,” Good said. “The bottom line is, Kevin is not going to be speaker… He’s not going to have the votes, and the number of individuals who are committed to not voting for him — it’s growing, not receding.”
Republicans, Good said, need to “get past the denial stage” saying the sooner they start searching for a consensus candidate, “the better off we’re all going to be.”
Politico reported last week that a group of lawmakers has quietly approached Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), who is currently the No. 2 leader in the House GOP, about running for speaker if McCarthy comes up short.
“Steve, just be ready,” one member currently backing McCarthy told the liberal political website. Late last month, after it was clear Republicans had taken control of the House, Scalise ran unopposed for majority leader and won easily. The member said he “could be a good consensus leader if things don’t go well for Kevin.”
The situation is dicey. Scalise isn’t openly running for the position because it’s dangerous to announce a challenge to the powerful McCarthy: if someone tries and fails, that member could well by punished for their temerity.
“If somebody were to come out now and we didn’t deliver enough votes to stop Mr. McCarthy, that there would be a real potential for blowback,” Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ) recently told The Hill. “They want to be very careful. So I think I think people are interested. They’ve expressed it to some of us … I think people are being wary.”
The views expressed in this piece are the author’s own and do not necessarily represent those of The Daily Wire.
Joseph Curl has covered politics for 35 years, including 12 years as White House correspondent for a national newspaper. He was also the a.m. editor of the Drudge Report for four years. Send tips to [email protected] and follow him on Twitter @josephcurl.