Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy announced in a Wall Street Journal op-ed that he is resigning from Congress.
The California Republican will leave at the end of the year, setting up a special election before 2024’s U.S. House of Representatives elections.
Multiple Republican lawmakers told Axios last week that the former House Speaker would vacate his long-held congressional seat before the end of the year.
According to the report, McCarthy had reportedly gone so far as to confide in major donors that he intended to “get the hell out” of Congress, further eroding the GOP’s tenuous three-vote majority.
“I have another week or so to decide because if I decide to run again, I have to know in my heart I’m giving 110%,” McCarthy told financial reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin last Wednesday at Manhattan’s DealBook Summit. “I have to know that I want to do that,” the longtime Republican leader continued. “I also have to know if I’m going to walk away, that I’m going to be fine with walking away. And so I’m really taking this time now.”
Reaction to the then-rumors from his Republican colleagues was mixed.
“I mean, why the hell would he stay?,” one Republican lawmaker opined. “Damn shame,” quipped another.
Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz (R), who lead the intra-party rebellion against McCarthy, had an uncompromising take: “I suspect the former speaker will return to spend more time with the people he’s always represented – on Wall Street and K Street. I don’t imagine he’ll be walking the streets of Bakersfield.”
Some Republicans are worried that McCarthy may use his campaign funds to interfere in the primaries of the eight GOP lawmakers who voted for his removal instead of helping to expand the GOP’s majority.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) is expected to hold a special election after McCarthy departs at the end of the year.
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