around, andy biggs, matt gaetz, bob good, and matt rosen dale. what is the latest? reporter: right now mccarthy s team is confident tonight will finally be the night the 14th ballot, the longest speaker s election in more than 100 years that he ll be elected speaker of the house, but they ve moved behind the scenes to work over those six members in the past couple of hours. looking at a combination of flipping him to vote for him or changing the voting threshold altogether. how do they do that? by convincing some of them to vote, quote, present prch this is the math. 214 members voted for kevin mccarthy in the last ballot. if all memberserize present and in attendance and voting for a specific candidate that means 218 votes need to get there. he will get to 216 we know that because two of the his supporters have been out of town for various family and medical issues. now they re coming back into town tonight. that ll get them back up to 216.
will get the vote. the longest speaker s race that we ve seen since the mid-18 hundreds. but, they believe they ve gotten there. the question will ultimately be on which members ultimately flip. you showed the six on your screen, some of those, they will need all members come and vote for a specific candidate, they will need four of those six. but, there are other strategies now being discussed, including urging some of those members to vote present doing that lowers the voting threshold. then that s how many members ultimately decide to vote present . all those discussions happening hind the scenes. after the vote tonight, the mccarthy team putting out word to the members to prepare for a late night. he will finally make the speech accepting the gavel and make a speech to the full house and
politics there, but mccarthy doesn t seem too concerned. i asked him about rosendale and crane, and he didn t quite say how he plans to get those members, but there s lots of different scenarios in which you can get some. some may vote present to lower the voting threshold, and these two to spupport mccarthy are essential. this is an historic speaker s race. more than 100 years here that he will finally get the votes to be elected speaker after we ve seen it s been 100 years since we have had multiple ballballots. it is huge news and a lucky friday the 13th for kevin mccarthy as of right now. not just luck, but obviously a lot of wheeling and dealing and negotiating. right now, kevin mccarthy is within grasp of the house speakership. he has 214 votes. he only needs to flip two rebels
ballots, but not on the third ballot. and that is a real fear among mccarthy allies in the opposition. and how are democrats feeling this? well, they have not made a decision yet on how to proceed. they do know that at the moment, it is planning to sit back and just kind of watched this chaos unfold. this house is paralyzed. it cannot move forward until they elect a speaker. that is the first order of business. that is what hakeem jeffries, the incoming democratic leader, told reporters this evening. he said we re looking for willing partners to solve republicans, solve problems for the american people, not save the republicans from their own dysfunction. so, there has been some talk, perhaps republicans and some democrats could join together and find some sort of consensus candidate. jeffries says those talks just simply are not happening. there s also other ways they could try to lower the voting threshold. so, 218 votes are now required to elect a speaker. perhaps it could be lo
to find another candidate. and another sign for concern of his, that byron donalds, who is a republican from florida, was one of those who voted for mccarthy on the first two ballot, but not on the third ballot. and that is a real fear among mccarthy allies that the opposition may only grow. and how are democrats viewing this? well, they have not made a decision yet on how to proceed. they do know at the moment they re planning to sit back and watch this chaos unfold. this house is paralyzed. it cannot move forward until they elect a speaker that is the first order of business. and that is what hakeem jeffries told reporters this evening. he said we re looking for a willing partner to solve problems for the american people, not save the republicans from their own dysfunction. so there has been some talk that perhaps the republicans and some democrats could join together and find some sort of consensus candidate. those talks are simply not happening. there are also other ways to low