Consider This from NPR - What's Ahead for Rep. Kevin McCarthy and the Republican Party?

Episode Date: December 27, 2022

Rep. Kevin McCarthy is the GOP leader in the House of Representatives and he's campaigning to become Speaker in the next Congress. But a handful of House Republicans say they won't support him.Associated Press' chief congressional correspondent Lisa Mascaro talks about McCarthy's strategy.And NPR's Elena Moore reports on what young conservatives want from their party. In participating regions, you'll also hear a local news segment to help you make sense of what's going on in your community.Email us at [e-mail] more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoicesNPR Privacy Policy

This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu. Time is running out for Kevin McCarthy. The California Republican is campaigning to become Speaker of the House in the next Congress. The GOP will have a narrow majority. The January 3rd election is fast approaching, and McCarthy is still not a slam dunk for the speakership. Here he is making his case on conservative outlet Newsmax. We have to speak as one voice.

We will only be successful if we work together, or we'll lose individually. Back in November, McCarthy easily secured a majority of Republican votes to win the nomination for speaker within his party. The question now is whether he can get a majority on the House floor, 218 votes to actually become speaker. This is very fragile that we are the only stopgap for this Biden administration. And if we don't do this right, the Democrats can take the majority. If we play games on the floor, the Democrats can end up picking who the speaker is. The problem? Even with former President Donald Trump on his side,

McCarthy doesn't have the full support of House Republicans. I'm not voting for Kevin McCarthy. I'm not voting for him tomorrow. I'm not voting for him on the floor. That was Representative Matt Gaetz of Florida speaking to conservative radio host Charlie Kirk a day before the House GOP conference voted on the speaker nomination. Gaetz is one of at least five House Republicans who are still not supporting McCarthy. I think there's a real desire to have fresh faces, new leadership, new ideas, and to turn a new page so that we can get to the

important work that we promised the American people we could get to. Consider this. Kevin McCarthy has one week left to secure his place as the next House leader. If he loses his bid, what would that mean for the future of his party? From NPR, I'm Ari Shapiro. It's Tuesday, December 27th. It's Consider This from NPR. Republican Kevin McCarthy, the House Minority Leader in the outgoing Congress, is the most obvious candidate to become speaker of the House next year. But he does not yet have enough support from his own party to win the seat.

McCarthy needs 218 votes to become speaker. When the new Congress is sworn in, Republicans will have a narrow majority of just 222 seats. And at least five Republicans have already said they won't support his bid. So what's McCarthy's strategy? My colleague Juana Summers spoke about that with the Associated Press's chief congressional correspondent, Lisa Mascaro. So there are at least five Republicans who have declared that they're not going to vote for McCarthy and there are more current and incoming members who might not be inclined to vote for him either. So why not? What's the source of the opposition to him? Right. This is a longstanding issue. These Republicans

are some of the more conservative members of the House Republican Conference. They are some of the leaders of the Freedom Caucus, which is the group of some of the most conservative, they are asking Leader McCarthy for a series of rules changes, ways to have a better seat at the table in decision making, in the ability to bring bills to the floor. But there's also an undercurrent here that some people say that Leader McCarthy just will never be able to win over these detractors, that he's just not conservative enough. They're not sure he believes in all the things they want. They just are unconvinced in his leadership. So setting that aside for a moment, you mentioned some of the things that these holdouts are trying to extract from Kevin McCarthy, like rule changes and other things. Based on your reporting, do you

get the sense that these are changes or concessions that Kevin McCarthy may be amenable to? Absolutely. Some of these changes fall in the category of sort of longstanding complaints that rank-and-file members, often of both parties even, have about the way the House is run. But there are some changes the holdouts are seeking from McCarthy that may just be too far. One of those changes is this motion to vacate the chair. And that's the ability for any one single member of Congress to file a motion to require a vote to basically get rid of the speaker.

The House would then have to vote. Do we want to boot out our speaker? That could be a bridge too far. The kind of change that could cost Leader McCarthy, if he were to become Speaker, his job. So if we think big picture here, Lisa, what has been Kevin McCarthy's strategy to win over the votes he needs to become House Speaker come January? McCarthy has started by what you would think, sort of negotiating, working with people, holding closed door meetings, calling people into his office. He's somebody who's seen as sort of a

real people person. But in recent days, as it becomes clear that these five or so holdouts do not seem like they want to budge, McCarthy has taken a harder edge. He was recently on a conservative talk show where the talk show host was calling these holdouts knuckleheads. And McCarthy said they're risking the start of the new Congress. So he has really taken a harder tone against his colleagues. And that really leaves a question of what kind of leader he is. Do you win over your colleagues by bringing them on board, or do you win them over by sort of putting down the hammer? If we get to January 3rd, when the new Congress convenes with Republicans in control of the House, and Kevin McCarthy

does not have 218 votes, what happens then? Well, Wanda, this would be historic. You look back to the 1923 speaker's election, and they had to go to rounds of voting before they finally were able to emerge with a speaker. McCarthy has said he's willing to go as many rounds as it takes. But you know, there's a real question here. Will he pick up support if it goes to multiple rounds? Or will he even lose more detractors? There is an opportunity here for McCarthy to become Speaker by fewer than 218 votes. But if some lawmakers were to simply vote present and not cast their ballot, that would lower the overall threshold according to the rules and would then lower the majority needed to become Speaker. So in the past,

for example, Speaker Pelosi has been elected with fewer than 218 votes, as had Republican Speaker John Boehner. That is another option that Leader McCarthy could try to take to win the gavel. That was the AP's chief congressional correspondent, Lisa Mascaro. Last month's midterm elections did not go the way Republicans were hoping. Yes, they took control of the House away from the Democrats, but only by a slim margin. And the party actually lost ground in the Senate. One reason for that underwhelming GOP performance? Younger voters.

A majority of millennial and Generation Z voters, people under 41, voted for Democrats this cycle. Republicans, on the other hand, maintained majorities among older voters. So where does this leave young conservatives who want to see their party thrive? NPR's Elena Moore talked to some of them. The GOP, the grand old party, isn't usually considered the party for the young. And former Republican congressional candidate Caroline Leavitt knows that. She lost in November. And now the 25-year-old Gen Z conservative has a message for her party. Start recruiting young voters and fast. This is the greatest challenge for the Republican Party today.

And the midterm results certainly prove that. Levitt is using her own experience as a candidate to push her party to restructure its online strategy, both on social media and through digital advertising. She says Republicans also need a better ground game. We don't have the grassroots institutions in place to turn these voters out to the polls. It's not that young people in conservative households don't exist. Of course they do. But we're not mobilizing them in the vast way that the Democrats are. Still, recruiting and energizing millennials and Gen Z, sometimes called Zoomers, can be challenging. Protecting abortion access brought many young people to the ballot box.

John De La Volpe, the director of polling at Harvard's Institute of Politics, says you can't ignore how issues like abortion push people to the polls, especially younger voters. There's very little to no chance for a Republican candidate to win the vote of a Zoomer if they're not willing to recognize a woman's right to control her body. If you're not willing to recognize those things, you can't have a conversation with Gen Z. If you can't have a conversation with Gen Z, you're not going to be able to motivate them to vote. For Iowa State Representative Joe Mitchell, who's 25 and a Republican, issues like abortion, climate, LGBTQ rights, and gun violence aren't the kind of topics that you can shy away from. We have to be able to be unapologetic about our stances. Mitchell leads the organization Run Gen Z. It supports young Republicans seeking local

and state office. On issues like abortion, which Mitchell voted to restrict in the state legislature, conservative viewpoints aren't always what people think they are. Plus... We believe in having a more renewable energy future when that works and when that's appropriate. And obviously, we want to make sure that kids are safe in school, and we just have different ideas of how to protect them. So I think taking these issues head on is important when they're asked about. Also unapologetic about her stances is 25-year-old Isabel Brown, a conservative media personality and contributor for Turning Point USA,

an organization that engages young Republicans. Generation Z is a very humanistic, empathy-first feelings generation. To get more youth interest, Brown says the party needs to actively refocus away from just economic policy, which has been central to the GOP platform. For whatever reason, in this last election, the Republican Party held on very substantially to the idea that people vote with their pocketbook and their wallet first. And we just didn't see that to be true. Those stances on social issues, though, aren't winning elections for Republicans. It's that economic message that ekes out victories, according to Republican pollster Jim Hobart.

That's why it's more successful for Republican campaigns to spend money on older voters, he says, especially in midterm elections where voters over 45 turn out at higher numbers and skew Republican. So you do have to make these hard choices. And on average, where are you going to go? Where more voters are, both in terms of your likelihood to get them and their likelihood to turn out. And here's one sobering data point. Young voters are expected to dominate the electorate over the next decade. In 2024 alone, close to 40 percent of millennials and Gen Zers are expected to vote. And for young conservatives, they don't want to leave potential votes on the table. NPR's Elena Moore.

It's Consider This from NPR. I'm Ari Shapiro. This message comes from Indiana University. Indiana University is committed to moving the world forward, working to tackle some of society's biggest challenges. IU makes bold investments in the future of bioscience and cybersecurity, cultivates visionary work in the arts and humanities, and prepares students to become global citizens by teaching more languages than any other university in the country. Indiana University. Nine campuses, one purpose. Creating tomorrow, today. More at iu.edu.