Kevin McCarthy Just Put House Republicans in a Pickle

Kevin McCarthy, Republican Congressman from California and former House Speaker, announced that he will be leaving office at the end of December, robbing House Republicans of their best fundraiser and further shrinking their razor-thin majority.

McCarthy’s move has been widely speculated for weeks, if not months, since his ignominious ouster from the Speakership in October. 

It was well known McCarthy coveted the Speaker’s gavel for at least eight years, jockeying for the role as John Boehner’s successor—though he’d ultimately be passed over for the role in favor of Paul Ryan.

McCarthy’s Speakership was a ten-month exercise in public humiliation, beginning with the near-historic number of voting rounds needed to finally secure his spot, thanks to hold outs among Matt Gaetz and the far-right Freedom Caucus.

Because Democrats control the White House and Senate, whatever affirmative “agenda” the Republicans had was effectively dead on arrival due to the caucus’s hyperpartisanship and its far right flank’s reluctance to work with President Biden.

After months of escalation and brinkmanship, McCarthy landed a debt ceiling deal with Biden which was widely seen as far more favorable to the President than to Republicans, beginning a slow burn of discontent within the conference which would eventually consume McCarthy’s Speakership.

After McCarthy’s erratic and dishonest maneuvering regarding a potential government shutdown, he’d sufficiently alienated enough Republicans and Democrats to guarantee his removal by way of a motion to vacate. 

In the aftermath, McCarthy became increasingly outspokenly hostile towards his fellow Republicans, from Matt Gaetz and Nancy Mace to Tim Burchett, and rumors trickled in that he would depart Congress prematurely rather than return to the fold as a backbencher. 

Though McCarthy offered a bog-standard retirement message in video form (and in a Wall St. Journal op-ed), it’s easy to see and fair to assume that his decision is timed in such a way to put his dysfunctional conference in an even more precarious position.

Combined with the recent expulsion of George Santos and the pending retirement of Bill Johnson, McCarthy’s decision will reduce the GOP to a single-seat majority and—as we head into an election year in which Republicans will almost certainly lose the House—deny them their single best fundraiser: himself.