Kevin McCarthy faces election for House speaker unsure if he has votes needed – live

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The noontime showdown in the House over the speakership could very well devolve into a prolonged floor fight, a spectacle that divides the Republican Party, weakens its leadership and consumes the first days of the new Congress, the Associated Press reports.

This is a lot more important than about one person. It’s about whether Republicans will be able to govern,” said Doug Heye, a former Republican leadership senior aide.

A new generation of Trump-aligned Republicans are leading the opposition to McCarthy, inspired by the former president’s Make America Great Again slogan.

They don’t think McCarthy is conservative enough or tough enough to battle Democrats. It’s reminiscent of the last time Republicans took back the House majority, after the 2010 midterms, when the tea-party class ushered in a new era of hardball politics, eventually sending Speaker John Boehner to an early retirement.

Typically it takes a majority of the House’s 435 members, 218 votes, to become the speaker. With just a slim 222-seat majority, McCarthy can afford only a handful of detractors. A speaker can win with fewer than 218 votes, as Pelosi and Boehner did, if some lawmakers are absent or simply vote present.

But McCarthy has failed to win over a core — and potentially growing — group of right-flank Republicans led by the conservative Freedom Caucus, despite weeks of closed-door meetings and promised changes to the House rules. Nearly a dozen Republicans have publicly raised concerns about McCarthy.

Kevin McCarthy doesn’t have the 218 votes to be speaker. Unless something dramatically changes, that’s where we’re going to be,” Scott Perry, Pennsylvania Republican representative and chairman of the Freedom Caucus – and a leader in Trump’s efforts to challenge the results of the 2020 election – said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The balance of power in Washington will shift when Republicans officially take control of the House on 3 January.

Yet House Republicans begin the 118th Congress in a precarious position: their grip on power is fragile and their conference fractured.

After a historically weak performance by the minority party in a midterm election, House Republicans have struggled to unite.Uncertainty hangs over the speakership election, as Kevin McCarthy attempts to quell a conservative revolt that could derail his long-held hopes of claiming the speaker’s gavel.

Democrats meanwhile will begin the next Congress with a fresh slate of leaders, after the House speaker, Nancy Pelosi, and her deputies stepped aside to pave the way for a new generation. Now, in a historical first, the triumvirate of top House Democrats includes no white men.

Read more of the who’s who and what’s what in our handy explainer, here.

All the new members of Congress elected in the midterm elections in November will arrive on Capitol Hill today, many with family in tow, waiting to be sworn in to the brand new 118th Congress.

There will be exuberant scenes but the House speaker vote comes first, which is going to be quite the political soap opera, as we’ve outlined.

Kevin McCarthy is expected to huddle with fellow Republicans in the bowels of the House around 9.30am as he tries to wrangle sufficient support before facing the first vote, which will be the first order of business when the House gavels in at midday.

House speakers are normally elected on one vote, but there are signs that McCarthy does not have enough support to win a majority and will perhaps be shoved aside by another (though no obvious names right on his shoulder) or, more likely, grimly hang on through rounds and rounds of voting until he finally garners a majority of his fellow Republicans.

There are 222 Republicans in the newly-convening House. McCarthy probably needs 218 votes to become Speaker and at least five of his fellows are strongly in opposition, so he starkly does not have the votes at this time.

All signs point to a battle royale on the House side of Capitol Hill today – and perhaps beyond – as California Republican Kevin McCarthy battles to secure enough votes to be named House Speaker, while facing fierce opposition from the right-wing of his caucus.

He has long aspired to become Speaker of the House, failing in an attempt in 2015 and now hoping he will succeed and take the gavel from his fellow Californian from the other side of the aisle – outgoing Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

Pelosi is continuing as a representative in the House, of her San Francisco district, but is stepping back from her leadership role. The Republicans won control of the House by a narrow margin at the midterm elections in November.

Look for Pelosi’s Democratic leadership successor Hakeem Jeffries, as House minority leader, to help make things difficult for McCarthy today, rallying all his members to the chamber to vote against McCarthy becoming Speaker and making it harder for the Republican to scrape a majority.

McCarthy needs 218 votes to win the speakership (barring any absences that could lower that threshold) and there is stubborn opposition to his victory from far-right Republican representatives such as Marjorie Taylor Greene, Lauren Boebert and Matt Gaetz.

The right-wing House freedom caucus chair’s Scott Perry tweeted this an hour ago:

Good morning, US politics blog readers and welcome to our first blog of 2023, kicking off here as the 118th US Congress gets going.

It’s a vertical take-off for drama in Washington DC today with all eyes on the House of Representatives. Here’s what’s in store:

Republican House leader Kevin McCarthy hopes to be voted in as House speaker today, succeeding Democrat Nancy Pelosi as the GOP takes control of the lower chamber of Congress after the party’s notable win amid a below-par mid-term election performance in November.

Trouble ahead, though. McCarthy arrives on Capitol Hill today with all signs pointing to his not having the votes he needs in the bag to be named speaker – at least on the first round of voting – setting up the biggest battle for the gavel in 100 years.

The House will commence business at 12pm today and the very first order of business, before new members are sworn in, even, is to elect the speaker of the House. McCarthy plans to huddle in the bowels of the Capitol this morning, hoping to negotiate enough support to win a majority on the first round of voting – but it’s not looking good. We have the prospect of multiple rounds of voting, stay tuned to see what happens.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre will hold the first media briefing of the year, with that gathering in the West Wing scheduled for 2.30pm (though we know from experience that that timing can slip … and slip …

The US Senate also convenes today and it’s all calm in the upper chamber, as the Democrats retained control in the midterm elections and Kentucky Republican Mitch McConnell resumes his role as minority leader with a celebration as he becomes the longest-serving political party leader in senate history.

Joe Biden has no public events today but the US president is traveling to Kentucky tomorrow to celebrate new infrastructure spending – with McConnell in tow as a display of bipartisanship.