After 15 rounds of voting, Rep. Kevin McCarthy was eventually selected as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives late on Friday night.
McCarthy made a number of concessions to Republican Party members who had refused to support him, and as a result, he was ultimately elected as the 55th Speaker of the United States House after 15 rounds of voting that started on Tuesday.
McCarthy received 216 of the 428 total votes cast on Friday, defeating Democrat Hakeem Jeffries' 212.
Six Republicans made the decision to abstain from voting, choosing neither to support McCarthy as a speaker nor to vote for a different candidate. This was the first time in almost a century that the election of a speaker took more than one ballot.
McCarthy took the gavel and swore in the 118th Congress after a protracted speaker vote that lasted since Tuesday, officially kicking off congressional business in the House of Representatives.
“That was easy, huh?” McCarthy remarked after his caucus chanted “U-S-A” as he took the podium. “I never thought we’d get up here.”
McCarthy’s inaugural address as House Speaker covered government expenditure, inflation, the national debt, the economy, and immigration.
“My father always told me, it’s not how you start, it’s how you finish and now we need to finish strong for the American people,” he said.
By a razor’s edge, the Republican Party wins the House of Representatives in the November midterms.
The California representative takes over from Nancy Pelosi, who announced last month that she would be stepping down as the Democratic leader in the House.
Jeffries, a Democrat from New York, has been elected to lead the House minority.
McCarthy has pledged to use his new position to disrupt the Democratic agenda and increase scrutiny of the Joe Biden administration.