McCarthy launches an offer for the minority leader in the House

Elections

Conservative Conservative Jim Jordan challenges him from the right.

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy on Wednesday launched an offer of candidacy to the minority leader, claiming his power over the Republican Conference, as GOP lawmakers begin to lose their majority in the daytime. elections.

McCarthy is already facing a challenge from his right, although the California Republican and his allies believe McCarthy will easily win this race. Representative Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), one of the founders of the House Freedom Caucus, has already announced that he is running as a minority leader.

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Steve Scalise, the majority whip in the House, announced that he would run for the position of minority whip at 116th Congress, which would make McCarthy and Scalise the two best Republicans if they were successful. , as expected.

The leadership race comes even before the final tally is made of Tuesday's losses that swept the power of Republicans in the House after eight years.

"Today is a tough day.Our members competed in the country.But after months of unprecedented partial attacks and unprecedented liberal resources, we have failed to challenge the History and to hold the House, "said the President McCarthy, 53, wrote in a Wednesday letter to other Republicans in the House. "Still, we should not let the results of last night diminish the huge gains that President Trump and our majority have achieved."

McCarthy added, "I've helped build a majority from a deeper hole than this one and I've got what it takes to do it again. C & # 39; That's why I decided to run for Republican and humbly ask for your support. "

Repeating the claims of President Donald Trump, with whom McCarthy has formed a close relationship, the Californian Republican said that "we have seen where the Democrats want to take our country: open borders, government-run health care, removal of President Trump and overwhelming debt "for our children and grandchildren. We simply can not let that happen. "

McCarthy unsuccessfully presented as a speaker in 2015 after the retirement of President John Boehner (R-Ohio), but he had to step down in opposition to the Freedom Caucus, with Jordan as the main actor of the group.

This decision paved the way for Paul Ryan to become a speaker. Ryan and McCarthy – two members of the "Young Guns", a name given a decade earlier to conservative leaders in the making, have established a close working relationship. McCarthy, however, clearly wanted to be a speaker again someday.

Following the surprise announcement of Ryan's retirement in April, McCarthy became the first substitute for the campaign for Republicans in the House. He has raised tens of millions of dollars at hundreds of events for GOP candidates and incumbents across the country, a decision that will reinforce his plans to become the Republic's largest House.

Jordan had previously indicated that he would run for the post of president or leader of a minority, and he doubled his promise on Wednesday. "I plan to run for the minority leader," Jordan said in an interview at Hill.TV.

Jordan then listed a number of unfulfilled promises of the GOP campaign that, according to conservatives, contributed to the party's loss of power on Tuesday night: "In 2016, the American people elected Republicans to come here and change the city.I think the president does just that, but I do not think they see the same intensity on the part of members of Congress, members of the House of Representatives. "

The race pits Trump's two allies against each other. McCarthy, a pragmatist who recently changed his name to become a follower of immigration, is close to Trump and talks to him almost daily. Trump, however, also likes Jordan, a darling conservative and a TV star who defends the president aggressively.

Democrats pledging to aggressively investigate Trump and the government, Jordan's allies argue that Trump needs an attack dog like him who is fighting on behalf of the White House against what could become a dismissal battle.

But Jordan, 54, is deeply unpopular with some of his colleagues. His flawless tactics and insistence on the ideological purity of the GOP hindered lawmakers who sought to work within or across factions.

Jordan also angered several members of the base by declaring, a few months later, the election of the president. These members felt that he should focus on helping his colleagues to be re-elected, even though Jordan has collected millions of dollars and donated to dozens of candidates for the purpose of electing preservatives.

While the Freedom Caucus is expected to represent a larger share of the House's GOP next year, McCarthy only needs half of the conference to be the minority leader and should easily get those votes . McCarthy has been in private for weeks with legislators who want to support him to replace Ryan, but he had not yet made his intentions public until Wednesday.

Jordan's hard line might not please legislators who feel they have lost the House, in part because of the Freedom Caucus' request to repeal a repealing bill on Obamacare in 2017 In his Wednesday morning interview, Jordan cited the fact that Republicans had not yet repealed Obamacare as a reason to elevate him to the caucus summit.

But many House Republicans lost their seats Tuesday night, largely because of their vote in favor of repealing the measure. At the time, the freedom caucus had insisted that the bill allow states to evade the obligation imposed on insurance companies to impose the same treatment on individuals. in good health and to sick people. Democrats have seized this vote, accusing Republicans of trying to remove protections against people with pre-existing disorders, the most popular element of Obamacare.

The final stage of Jordan, however, may not really be a minority leader

For years, he sought to lead the House's oversight committee and also examined the Republican position in the House's Judiciary Committee, conservative sources said. In trying to deny McCarthy the votes of the minority leader, Jordan can take advantage of his position to get what he wants or strengthen the power of other conservatives.

While Jordan should not beat McCarthy, the GOP Conference presidency race quickly accelerated Wednesday morning. Wyoming Representative Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, challenges Representative Cathy McMorris Rodgers. The Republican state of Washington has been in this position for years. And while many Republicans have privately discussed the challenge, few have done so because of the optics of taking the only woman in a male dominated GOP caucus.

Cheney does not have this problem. The battle should be tough, with some members demanding a change at the top of the hierarchy and Cheney, a defense hawk, promising to communicate more effectively the achievements of the Chinese government to the public – the key role of the third position.

Still, McMorris Rodgers has his allies. And it's unclear if Cheney's challenge would provoke negative reactions if members reacted angrily to it.

If Cheney is worried about that, she did not show it. In a letter to GOP colleagues on Wednesday, Cheney suggested Tuesday's Democrat takeover was proof that "our message was not escaping" – and especially to McMorris Rodgers. She said the 115th Congress was one of the "most productive in history," given the GOP's tax cuts and the substantial increase in defense spending.

"Last night did not go as we had hoped," she wrote. "In order for us to triumph in this new environment, we must fundamentally reorganize and modernize our GOP House communication operation. We must be able to convey our message on all platforms. We must have daily news cycles.

Meanwhile, the outgoing chairman of the Republican Study Committee, Mark Walker, began setting the stage to take over Rep. Doug Collins (R-Ga.) Vice-Chair of the conference. The Republican of North Carolina, who has just won a third term, has been a bridge between the GOP leaders and the Conservatives in the House, taking a position when he deems it necessary but also trying to pass a law.

Walker also discussed the need for more effective communication on the part of Republicans. He is currently running without opposition.

"In the minority, Republicans need to improve their quick reaction efforts and learn to fight in unknown territories," Walker said in a statement to POLITICO. "We need to be relentless in conveying our message to voters, especially new audiences and new generations."