In a Wednesday Wall Street Journal op-ed, Loser former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy confirmed the rumors that he’s packing it in early and making the rest of the Republican caucus’s life with a thin majority even worse by resigning his seat effective at the end of this month.
This is the kind of development we should’ve done a pre-write for as it was becoming inevitable over recent weeks despite Kev shooting down rumors in the immediate aftermath of his ouster that he was headed for a near-term exit – actually fucking saying that he was even probably going to run for reelection in 2024. We’ll have plenty to say in at least one post-mortem, but for now the practical implication of McCarthy leaving is just lol. A two-seat GOP majority after that guy in Ohio leaves.
You know how on Tuesday we reported (twice, actually) that New York Governor Kathy Hochul set the special election to replace George Santos for February 13th? We’re not so sure her counterpart in California, Gavin Newsom, is going to be as alacritous with the same task given McCarthy’s district. He might just end up taking a page out of his frenemy Ron DeSantis’s playbook here.