'Messy': Matt Gaetz’s vendetta against Kevin McCarthy could shatter GOP’s 'united front' in 2024

27 December 2023

By the time 2024 arrives, Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) will be gone from the U.S. House of Representatives. And his far-right nemesis, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) can take much of the credit.

It was the ultra-MAGA Gaetz who triggered a "motion to vacate" that led to McCarthy being ousted as House speaker in early October. Three months ago, McCarthy was the top House Republican; in 2024, he won't be in Congress at all.

But Gaetz's vendetta against McCarthy, according to reporting in Politico on December 26, won't end when the former speaker leaves the House. Politico reported that Gaetz's ongoing anti-McCarthy efforts are reflected in endorsements that the MAGA congressman is making in GOP primaries; Gaetz is endorsing challengers to Republicans who McCarthy has already endorsed.

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In an article published on December 27, The New Republic's Tori Otten emphasizes that Gaetz's efforts could prevent Republicans from showing "a united front" in 2024.

McCarthy's "endorsements," Otten observes, "have mainly fallen along establishment Republican lines."

"But by endorsing different candidates," the reporter explains, "Gaetz could force the GOP into a messy season of hard-fought primaries, instead of allowing the party to present a united front. What's more, Gaetz's faves are all candidates who don't have strong chances of winning in the general election."

Gaetz himself is up for reelection in 2024. And Otten points out that Gaetz's anti-McCarthy obsession could be a political liability.

"Gaetz's proclivity for throwing a massive spanner into the Republican Party's works is unlikely to do him any favors in his own career," Otten notes. "He's already incredibly unpopular in his district, and GOP lawmakers are frustrated with him for engineering McCarthy's ouster…. Gaetz will nevertheless have a chance to prove that he has some election-year coattails — in spite of a career largely spent trolling his own colleagues."

Read Tori Otten's full New Republic article at this link.

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