Twenty House Republicans voted on Tuesday for someone other than Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) to be the next speaker of the House.
UPDATE: This story has been updated to reflect that Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) changed his vote from McCarthy to Jordan.
Ten House Republicans voted for Rep. Andy Biggs (R-AZ), a former House Freedom Caucus chairman, one member voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), seven voted for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH), one member voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), and one voted for Rep. Jim Banks (R-IN).
The ten that voted for Biggs include:
- Biggs
- Rep. Dan Bishop (R-NC)
- Rep. Andrew Clyde (R-GA)
- Rep. Eli Crane (R-AZ)
- Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
- Rep. Bob Good (R-VA)
- Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ)
- Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC)
- Rep. Matt Rosendale (R-MT)
- Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA)
The seven that voted for Jordan are:
- Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-CO)
- Rep. Michael Cloud (R-TX)
- Rep. Keith Self (R-TX)
- Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL)
- Rep. Mary Miller (R-IL)
- Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN)
- Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL)
Rep. Josh Breechen (R-OK) voted for Banks.
Rep. Andy Harris (R-MD) voted for Zeldin.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-TX) voted for Donalds.
This would be the first time since 1923 that the House had to hold more than one vote for speaker of the House. Fourteen votes for House Speaker have gone past the first ballot.
Members of the House Freedom Caucus have sought to bring about reforms to the House in exchange for their potential support for McCarthy; however, they decided not to vote for McCarthy.
McCarthy has stood firm against Freedom Caucus members, believing that they did not negotiate in good faith.
“I earned this job. We earned this majority, and God dammit we are going to win it today,” McCarthy reportedly told the House Republican Conference.
“We have worked for a long time. I’ve been leader for four years. I came into this position [and] we had less than 200 members. We are now sitting in the majority,” McCarthy said after a meeting of the House Republican Conference concluded.
C-SPAN
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who is backing McCarthy’s bid for speaker, said that Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and other detractors of McCarthy are not negotiating in earnest. Greene said that “three Republicans” are demanding committee positions for themselves.
Greene said that Gaetz has supported former Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) bid for speaker in prior congressional terms:
C-SPAN
Now that the speaker vote failed, there will likely be multiple speaker votes until the House elects a new leader.
Sean Moran is a policy reporter for Breitbart News. Follow him on Twitter @SeanMoran3.
