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Kevin McCarthy, the Republican congressman from California who was dramatically ousted as Speaker of the House in October, will leave Congress at the end of the month.
McCarthy said on Wednesday that he would not seek re-election next year, and instead cut short his two-year term in the House of Representatives and leave at the end of the year “to serve America in new ways”.
“I know my work is only getting started,” McCarthy said in an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. He vowed to “continue to recruit our country’s best and brightest to run for elected office”.
McCarthy’s departure from Congress will leave House Republicans without one of their most formidable fundraisers as they try to hold on to control of the lower chamber in next year’s elections. Republicans control the House by a razor-thin margin, and McCarthy’s resignation will give them an even slimmer majority until a special election is held next year to fill his seat, representing California’s central valley.
His retirement caps a tumultuous year for the veteran member of Congress, who was only selected as Speaker on the 15th round of voting in January.
In October he became the first leader in the history of Congress’s lower chamber to be voted out of the job, after a rebellion by eight members of his own party.
McCarthy’s removal thrust the House into disarray, as Republicans for weeks failed to coalesce around a successor.
Mike Johnson, a little-known Republican congressman from Louisiana and loyal ally of Donald Trump, was ultimately elected with the unanimous support of House Republicans as the new Speaker.
McCarthy’s own relationship with Trump, the former president and undisputed frontrunner for the Republican nomination for the White House in 2024, has been rocky at times.
The two had a largely positive relationship when Trump was in the White House, with the then-president often referring to the California congressman as “my Kevin”.
But McCarthy reportedly said “I’ve had it with this guy” after the January 6 2021 attack on the US Capitol, before smiling in photos with Trump at his Mar-a-Lago resort just weeks later.
Trump endorsed McCarthy’s bid for Speaker earlier this year, but stayed on the sidelines as Matt Gaetz, the Republican congressman from Florida, led the rebellion to oust him in the autumn.
In the 2022 election cycle, two McCarthy-aligned groups — the National Republican Congressional Committee and Congressional Leadership Fund — raised a combined $550mn on behalf of House Republican candidates, far more than the hauls of previous GOP leaders.
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