Republican Kevin McCarthy was on track to become House speaker on a historic post-midnight 15th ballot early Saturday, overcoming holdouts from his own ranks and floor tensions boiling over after a chaotic week that tested the new GOP majority’s ability to govern.
After four days of grueling ballots, McCarthy flipped more than a dozen conservative holdouts to become supporters, including the chairman of the chamber’s Freedom Caucus, leaving him just a few shy of seizing the gavel for the new Congress.
McCarthy had declared to reporters earlier in the day that he believed "we’ll have the votes to finish this once and for all." The showdown that has stymied the new Congress came against the backdrop of the second anniversary of the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, which shook the country when a mob of then-President Donald Trump’s supporters tried to stop Congress from certifying the Republican’s 2020 election defeat to Democrat Joe Biden.
One significant former holdout, Republican Scott Perry, chairman of the conservative Freedom Caucus who had been a leader of Trump’s efforts to challenge the 2020 election, tweeted after his switched vote for McCarthy: "We’re at a turning point." But in nominating the Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Democrat Jim Clyburn recalled the horror of that day and told his colleagues: "The eyes of the country are on us today," he said.
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