Kevin McCarthy elected leader of US House Republican caucus

WASHINGTON — Republican Kevin McCarthy easily won an internal party election Wednesday to take over the shrunken House GOP caucus, a familiar role for the underestimated scrapper whose top priority will be to protect President Donald Trump’s agenda and try to build the party back to retake the majority.

The speaker’s gavel long gone, the race for minority leader was McCarthy’s to lose, but the Californian’s rise was never guaranteed. He’s close to Trump, but the president is also friendly with Rep. Jim Jordan, the conservative Freedom Caucus member, and both faced testy colleagues ready to assign blame after the midterm election losses.

In the end, McCarthy pushed past Jordan, 159-43, according to officials familiar with the closed-door voting.

McCarthy “knows what he needs to do,” said GOP Whip Steve Scalise, the Louisiana Republican who was gravely wounded in last year’s congressional baseball practice shooting and unanimously won the No. 2 spot as minority whip.

“You always look in the mirror and see what you can do better,” Scalise said Tuesday. Republicans, he said, “need to do a better job of letting people know what we stand for.”

Theirs was the marquee contest as senators also chose new leaders, but House Democrats put off until after Thanksgiving the biggest contest, Rep. Nancy Pelosi’s bid to return as her party’s nominee for speaker.

On the other side of the Capitol, senators chose Majority Leader Mitch McConnell for another term leading Republicans and Chuck Schumer for Democrats in closed-door party elections that lacked the drama of the House contest.

Both McConnell and Schumer were chosen as leader by acclamation, according to those familiar with the private caucus meetings. McConnell, the Kentucky Republican who expanded GOP ranks in last week’s midterm, faced no opponent. Democrats returned Schumer’s entire leadership team, despite the failure to capture the majority in the midterms.

Senate Republicans also welcomed the first woman to their leadership team in years, Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst, as they sought to address the optics of the GOP side of the aisle being dominated by men.

Ernst called her selection to the leadership ranks “a great honor.”

Associated Press writers Matthew Daly, Kevin Freking, Laurie Kellman and Alan Fram in Washington contributed to this report.