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What's Causing the Speaker's Dilemma?
On Tuesday, the new Congress officially convened for the first time and their first order of business was to elect a Speaker. Because the Republican majority in the House is so slim, the presumptive Speaker pick Kevin McCarthy could only afford to lose four Republican votes. But after the first round,. it ended up being 19 members who would support someone other than McCarthy. By the third round, it was up to 20 with Florida Rep Byron Donald's the first member to switch to someone else after initially supporting McCarthy. And after that, Donald's himself actually became the anti-McCarthy nominee, though by the eighth ballot GOP holdouts for casting their votes elsewhere.