For a long and frustrating third day, divided Republicans left the speaker’s chair of the US House of Representatives sitting empty, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed and failed again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough Republican votes to seize the chamber’s gavel.
Pressure was building as Mr McCarthy lost a seventh, eighth, ninth and 10th round of voting, passing the number it took the last time this happened, 100 years ago, in a prolonged fight to choose a speaker in a disputed election.
With his supporters and foes locked in stalemate, feelings of boredom and desperation seemed increasingly evident with no end in sight.
One McCarthy critic, Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida, even cast his vote for Donald Trump, a symbolic but pointed sign of the broader divisions over the Republican Party’s future.
“It’s not happening,” said Representative Lauren Boebert of Colorado, who nominated a new alternative, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, and urged colleagues to consider a future without Mr McCarthy, saying: “We need a leader who is not of the broken system.”
Mr McCarthy could be seen talking, one on one, in whispered conversations in the House chamber, and met privately earlier with colleagues determined to persuade Republican holdouts to end the paralysing debate that has blighted his new Republican majority.
“We’re having good discussions and I think everyone wants to find a solution,” Mr McCarthy told reporters shortly before the House gavelled in its third session.
Despite endless talks, signs of concessions and a public spectacle unlike any other in recent political memory, the path ahead remained highly uncertain.
The day started as the other two have, with Republican allies nominating him for now a seventh time to be speaker.
Republican John James of Michigan put Mr McCarthy’s name up for a vote, with a nod to history.
“My family’s gone from being slaves to the floor of the United States House of Representatives” in five generations, said Mr James, a newly elected legislator to be, who is black.
He said that while the House Republicans were “stuck” at the moment, Mr McCarthy, who has failed to seize a majority to become speaker, would ultimately win.
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries of New York was re-nominated by Democrats.
Republican party holdouts again put forward the name of fellow Representative Byron Donalds of Florida, assuring the stalemate that increasingly carried undercurrents of race and politics would continue.
Mr Donalds, who is black, is seen as a future party leader and counterpoint to the Democratic leader, Mr Jeffries, who is the first black leader of a major political party in the US Congress, on track himself to become speaker some day.
“We could have elected the first black speaker of the United States House,” said conservative Republican Dan Bishop of North Carolina, who re-nominated Mr Donalds on Thursday.
Democrats jumped to their feet in applause, as Mr Jeffries is, in fact, closest to the gavel with the most votes on every ballot so far.
What started as a political novelty, the first time in 100 years a nominee had not won the gavel on the first vote, has devolved into a bitter Republican Party feud and deepening potential crisis.
Mr McCarthy is under growing pressure from restless Republicans, and Democrats, to find the votes he needs or step aside, so the House can open fully and get on with the business of governing.
His right-flank detractors appear intent on waiting him out, as long as it takes.
“We’re having good discussions and I think everyone wants to find a solution,” Mr McCarthy told reporters shortly before the House was prepared to gavel into session again.
House chaplain Margaret Kibben opened the day’s session, perhaps the last of the week, calling on greater powers to “still the storms of dissent”.
The House, which is one half of Congress, is essentially at a standstill as Mr McCarthy has failed, one vote after another, to win the speaker’s gavel in a gruelling spectacle for all the world to see.
The ballots have produced almost the same outcome, 20 conservative holdouts still refusing to support him and leaving him far short of the 218 typically needed to win the gavel.
In fact, Mr McCarthy saw his support slipping to 201, as one fellow Republican switched to vote simply present.
“I think people need to work a little more,” Mr McCarthy said on Wednesday as they prepared to adjourn for the night.
“I don’t think a vote tonight would make any difference. But a vote in the future could.”
As the House resumed at noon on Thursday it could be a long day.
The new Republican majority was not expected to be in session on Friday, which is the anniversary of the January 6 2021 attack on the Capitol.
A prolonged and divisive speaker’s fight would almost certainly underscore the fragility of American democracy after the attempted insurrection two years ago.
“All who serve in the House share a responsibility to bring dignity to this body,” California Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the former speaker, said in a tweet.
Ms Pelosi also said the Republicans’ “cavalier attitude in electing a Speaker is frivolous, disrespectful and unworthy of this institution. We must open the House and proceed with the People’s work”.
Some Republicans appear to be growing uneasy with the way House Republicans have taken charge after the midterm election only to see the chamber upended over the speaker’s race in their first days in the new majority.
Colorado Republican Ken Buck voted for Mr McCarthy but said on Wednesday that he told him “he needs to figure out how to make a deal to move forward” or eventually step aside for someone else.
Mr McCarthy has vowed to fight to the finish for the speaker’s job in a battle that had thrown the new majority into tumult for the first days of the new Congress.
The right-flank conservatives, led by the Freedom Caucus and aligned with former president Mr Trump, appeared emboldened by the stand-off – even though Mr Trump publicly backed Mr McCarthy.
“This is actually an invigorating day for America,” said Mr Donalds, who was nominated three times by his conservative colleagues as an alternative.
“There’s a lot of members in the chamber who want to have serious conversations about how we can bring this all to a close and elect a speaker.”
The disorganised start to the new Congress pointed to difficulties ahead with Republicans now in control of the House, much the way that some past Republican speakers, including John Boehner, had trouble leading a rebellious right flank. The result: government shutdowns, stand-offs and Mr Boehner’s early retirement.
A new generation of conservative Republicans, many aligned with Mr Trump’s Make America Great Again agenda, want to upend business as usual in Washington, and were committed to stopping Mr McCarthy’s rise without concessions to their priorities.
But even Mr Trump’s strongest supporters disagreed on this issue.
Colorado Republican Lauren Boebert, who nominated Mr Donalds the second time, called on the former president to tell Mr McCarthy: “Sir, you do not have the votes and it’s time to withdraw.”
By Mr McCarthy’s own calculation, he needs to flip about a dozen Republicans who have so far withheld their backing as he presses on for the job he has long wanted.
To win support, Mr McCarthy has already agreed to many of the demands of Freedom Caucus members, who have been agitating for rules changes and other concessions that give rank-and-file members more influence.
Mostly, the holdouts led by the Freedom Caucus are seeking ways to shrink the power of the speaker’s office and give rank-and-file legislators more influence in the legislative process – with seats on key committees and the ability to draft and amend bills in a more free-for-all process.
Mr McCarthy conceded to some changes in a Rules package released over new year’s weekend, but for some it did not go far enough.
Those opposing Mr McCarthy do not all have the same complaints, and he may never be able to win over some of them.
A small core group of Republicans appear unwilling to ever vote for Mr McCarthy.
“I’m ready to vote all night, all week, all month and never for that person,” said Mr Gaetz.
Not since 1923 had a speaker’s election gone to multiple ballots.
The longest fight for the gavel started in late 1855 and dragged on for two months, with 133 ballots, during debates over slavery in the run-up to the Civil War.
