Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, announced Sunday that he is running for speaker of the House, complicating the path for Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., who was expected to succeed Speaker John Bohener.
Boehner, of Ohio, is stepping down at the end of the month.
Chaffetz, who chairs the House Oversight & Government Reform Committee, said on Fox News Sunday that he does not believe McCarthy can get the 218 votes he needs to be elected speaker because “nearly 50 people and a growing number” in the GOP caucus will not support him. “There is really a math problem” for McCarthy, Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz said he is being recruited from within the party to run. McCarthy is viewed as the current favorite of the Republican caucus, which will vote in a closed-door meeting Thursday. Chaffetz said McCarthy could falter later this month when the full House votes on the speaker.
Chaffetz described himself as well-positioned to “bridge the divide” between the establishment and conservative factions of the Republicans in the House.
“I think the American public wants to see a change,” he said. “They want a fresh start.”
Granting an “automatic promotion to the existing leadership team … doesn’t signal change,” he added.
Chaffetz is the third member in the race – Rep. Daniel Webster, R-Fla., has said he is running again. He ran against Boehner in January, receiving 12 votes from the Tea Party wing of the GOP.
McCarthy enraged conservatives last week by saying the investigation of the Benghazi terrorist attacks had succeeded in dragging down Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton’s poll numbers — suggesting that the investigation was a political ploy not a real effort to get the the truth of what happened there in September 2012.
Donald Trump still leads polls in the states that open the 2016 Republican presidential contest — Iowa and New Hampshire — but the margins have shrunk some in the past month, according to new surveys.
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