House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, hinted Sunday that Republican Kevin McCarthy may not have enough votes to succeed her in office even if there is a Republican majority in the House.
«Why value something that may pass or may never pass? No. I don’t think she has them, but that’s up to her own people, who have to make a decision on where they want to go,» Pelosi said in remarks to CNN.
Congressional Republicans will choose their speaker in a closed-door meeting in which a simple majority is needed for victory and subsequent appointment. Then the plenary will vote for the next Speaker of the House, where 218 votes will be needed to be elected.
Right now the Republican Party has 211 of the 435 seats in the House, to 204 confirmed for the Democratic Party. Twenty seats remain to be decided, but no matter what happens, the Republicans will not have the large majority they had hoped for after the November 8 elections.
McCarthy has campaigned among the Republican congressmen to be the next president and succeed Pelosi, but from the Freedom Caucus, close to former President Donald Trump, they assume that there will be another candidate besides McCarthy.
