The winners and losers of a wild week in Congress

Welcome to 538’s politics chat. The transcript below has been lightly edited.

nrakich (Nathaniel Rakich, senior editor and elections analyst): It has been a chaotic, dramatic week in Congress — and Lemon, it's only Wednesday. On Saturday morning, everyone assumed the federal government was going to shut down at the end of the day, but then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy unexpectedly proposed a 47-day continuing resolution that kept the government open by continuing 2023 funding levels (but did not include aid to Ukraine). It passed the House 335-91, with more Democratic votes than Republican ones, and then sailed through the Senate and was promptly signed by President Biden.

But anti-establishment Republicans were furious at what they saw as this capitulation to Democrats. On Monday, Rep. Matt Gaetz made a motion to vacate the chair — essentially, a vote of no-confidence in McCarthy's speakership. On Tuesday, eight Republicans joined with 208 Democrats to oust McCarthy from the speaker's office, 216-210. It was the first time in U.S. history that a House speaker had ever lost their job that way.

There's a lot to talk about here, including what the political fallout might be and who might be the next speaker of the House. But let's start with this: Why did McCarthy lose his job? Was there anything he could have done to keep it?

Monica Potts (Monica Potts, senior politics reporter): I've read a lot of reporting on this over the past few hours, and I think Democratic Rep. Pramila Jayapal said it best when she told reporters: “Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy. Nobody trusts Kevin McCarthy.” That came via a Washington Post analysis that detailed months of promises McCarthy made both to Democrats and far-right Republicans that couldn't possibly be kept. And then after Democrats bailed McCarthy out Saturday night to help keep the government open, he blamed them on “Face the Nation”! It seems very high school to say this, which may be fitting, but it sounds like the main complaint was that he was two-faced.

leah.askarinam (Leah Askarinam, politics reporter): That's a good one, Monica, although I personally was drawn to this quote from New Republic reporter Grace Segers: “I can't believe we're dealing with the motion to vacate on this October 3, Mean Girls Day.”

I wonder if McCarthy could have survived if he had had a clearer strategy, whereas in reality he kind of seemed to be rolling with the punches. Maybe if he had chosen to stick with the right flank, come hell or high water? Or if he had decided earlier to work closely with Democrats? I know he liked to say he had a strong working relationship with Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, but there's a difference between acting cordially and acting on a bipartisan basis. I just don't think he ever found his allies.

Monica Potts: Speaking of Mean Girls, Republicans wouldn't let Gaetz sit with them when he argued for his motion to vacate! He had to go to the Democrats' side to speak during the debate.

nrakich: Truly a Regina George move.

leah.askarinam: Amazing observation! He thought he was Cady Heron, but he was just Regina George. Over his skis.

nrakich: Seriously, though, Leah, I think you make a great point. McCarthy just kind of needed to pick a side and commit to it. Just days after he relied on Democratic votes to keep the government open, he rejected the idea of forming a de facto coalition government with Democrats. “That doesn’t work. I'm a conservative, I'm a Republican,” he told Manu Raju of CNN.

That said, if he had leaned into working with Democrats, he probably would have lost even more Republican support than he did, which may have proved untenable for him. And if he had tried harder to appease hard-line Republicans, the government would be shut down right now, right?

Monica Potts: Right! It was really an untenable situation. But McCarthy created this situation for himself when, in order to become speaker in the first place, he struck a deal back in January to allow just one member to trigger a motion to vacate instead of a majority of the GOP caucus.

leah.askarinam: He definitely could have been in an impossible position. Maybe appeasing the most centrist Democrats could have worked? But he somehow lost even Rep. Jared Golden, who voted for only one article of impeachment against former President Donald Trump and wouldn't campaign against Republican Sen. Susan Collins in 2020. That's got to be a sign of a missed opportunity.

nrakich: OK, so this week in Congress was obviously brutal for Republicans. They didn't emerge from the government shutdown fight with significant concessions, and their internal divisions were laid bare for the entire world to see. But how should Democrats feel about it? Was this whole episode a win for them, or something more ambiguous?

leah.askarinam: I think that's TBD, Nathaniel. One of McCarthy's detractors — Rep. Bob Good — said on the floor of the House on Tuesday that if there were ever a time for Republicans to shut down the government to gain leverage, it would be now. Because while Republicans usually take the blame for shutdowns, for whatever reason, this time around, polling showed voters were predisposed to blame Democrats instead. Now, McCarthy's supporters are pushing the message that Democrats ousted McCarthy and are therefore the ones who want dysfunction in Washington, D.C. If voters were already ready to blame Democrats, that message could potentially work. I'll be watching for that in the coming days.

Monica Potts: I think Democrats won the shutdown fight on a policy level, but like Leah said, I think it's up in the air politically. Both of this week’s fights were really over internal divisions among Republicans, but voters seem to want to at least partially blame Democrats — maybe because they have slightly more power in Washington? (Democrats control the Senate and White House, while Republicans control only the House.) Moreover, the continuing resolution only funded the government for 47 days, and it's missing Ukraine funding, which Democrats wanted. Now the House is embroiled in a leadership fight instead of resolving those spending issues and getting other policy priorities passed. At the same time, Democrats weren't willing to vote to save McCarthy's leadership, so maybe this serves their long-term goals better in some way.

nrakich: Yeah, to put some numbers on it: Monmouth University found that 48 percent of Americans would have held Biden or congressional Democrats most responsible for a shutdown, while 43 percent of Americans would have held congressional Republicans most responsible. And according to Morning Consult, 44 percent of Americans said Biden or congressional Democrats would have been mostly to blame, while only 34 percent said congressional Republicans. I think that means the shutdown resolution was an unambiguous win for Democrats, since they avoided a potentially politically damaging situation.

I’m less sure about the speakership fight, though. After all, McCarthy did agree to put forth that continuing resolution that contained most of what Democrats wanted. The next Republican speaker might not be so generous — especially after seeing what happened to McCarthy!

Monica Potts: I agree, Nathaniel. I doubt that any speaker can make the Republican hard-liners happy. At the end of the day, the House won't get everything it wants. It has to pass bills that will make it through the Democratic Senate and be signed by Biden.

leah.askarinam: It's also a question of what those hard-liners want. If they really just want to cause chaos — and potentially use the attention to run for higher office — there's not much any speaker could do to appease them, is there?

nrakich: Great point. Gaetz is reportedly considering running for Florida governor in 2026.

Speaking of ✨ elections ✨ ... Do you guys think this speakership fight and non-shutdown will have an electoral impact, either in 2024 or on the elections coming up in about a month?

leah.askarinam: The fight itself? No, I don't think it will make a difference in 2024. But does the fight tell us what kinds of challenges Republicans will face ahead of 2024, and how they might confront them? I think so. It's easy to forget how much all of this drama revolves around the likely GOP nominee, Trump. Trump didn't help McCarthy yesterday, and it took just hours for supporters like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to call for the former president to be speaker personally — not because he'd actually do it, I don't think, but because getting on his good side is helpful in the short term. McCarthy's decision to open up an impeachment inquiry into Biden was also, directly or indirectly, a result of Trump's calls for it.

Monica Potts: I totally agree, Leah. I don't think voters will take this into account when they go to the polls next year, but I do think it reveals where the Republican Party is at. And that will definitely affect how 2024 plays out.

nrakich: I'm gonna press you guys on that! Give me some evidence that this won't matter to voters!

Monica Potts: I just think voters don't really follow the ins and outs and dramas of Congress in a super detailed way, and so many view things through a partisan lens. A year from now, I don't know if this particular fight will register as important. That said, it may be true that it will feed into an overall idea Americans have about how Republicans and Democrats govern in general, which might change how voters feel about them.

leah.askarinam: On the list of items voters are concerned about — Ukraine, inflation, abortion — I don't think this kind of Mean Girls politics is top of voters' minds. It's not like Republicans rejected a figure beloved by most of their base, like Trump is. YouGov/The Economist conducted a poll from Sept. 30 to Oct. 3 that found McCarthy’s approval rating among Republican voters at just 49 percent. Although his disapproval rating was only 29 percent, notably, 22 percent of Republicans said that they didn’t have an opinion. Basically, I just don't think many Americans feel strongly enough about McCarthy to make decisions based on events surrounding congressional procedure that hurts him.

nrakich: I concur in part and dissent in part. It actually does seem like Americans were paying attention to the speakership fight back in January — and reacted negatively to it. According to 538's soon-to-be-released tracker of Congress's average approval rating, Congress's net approval rating went from "just" -30 percentage points on Jan. 3, 2023, to -42 points by Feb. 5. However, that sugar low faded quickly: By Feb. 20, it was back to -31 points. So while this month's episode may have an effect on public opinion in the short term, I agree that it won't last until next year's election.

leah.askarinam: But will the DRAMA last until next year's election?!

nrakich: That's the million-dollar question!

Monica Potts: If it does, I will be glued to C-SPAN.

leah.askarinam: C-SPAN is going to be the new Netflix (for a very specific group of nerds).

nrakich: Let's end there: What do you guys think happens next? Who will be the next speaker of the House? Will Republicans even be able to agree on a single candidate?

Monica Potts: Chaos will reign!

I think the only thing I'm willing to predict is that there will be some failed votes before there are successful ones.

leah.askarinam: I'm old enough to remember when McCarthy won the speakership even though it seemed pretty much impossible for Republicans to agree on one person. (Yes, I am over 8 months old.) And I'm actually even old enough to remember when Republicans had to beg former Rep. Paul Ryan to run for speaker because it looked like the GOP conference couldn't agree on anyone else.

So, what happens next? I have no idea, but I think they'll probably find someone, eventually. A handful of Republicans have already indicated they're interested.

nrakich: Yeah, Rep. Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise have already said they're running, and Rep. Kevin Hern is reportedly considering it as well.

But the speaker doesn't legally have to be a member of the House! And as you mentioned earlier, Leah, a few Republican representatives have already endorsed Trump for the job. What can we say about the likelihood of that happening?

leah.askarinam: I never say never (because, for example, the House just ousted its speaker for the first time in U.S. history), but no, Trump won't be speaker. One, as Democratic Rep. Sean Casten pointed out, it might be against House rules because of the indictments Trump is facing. Two, being speaker with such a narrow majority isn't exactly a launchpad into political success. Former Speaker John Boehner turned his attention from politics to the marijuana industry, and Ryan is a professor. And three, it would be tough for the 18 Republicans in districts that Biden carried to support Trump for speaker and then win reelection.

nrakich: To conclude on a common theme: Stop trying to make Speaker Trump happen. It's not going to happen.