For a third day, divided Republicans left the speaker’s chair of the U.S. House sitting empty Thursday, as party leader Kevin McCarthy failed and failed again in an excruciating string of ballots to win enough GOP votes to seize the chamber’s gavel.
Pressure was building as McCarthy lost the seventh and eighth rounds of voting, and launched on a historic ninth ballot, tying the number it took the last time this happened, 100 years ago, in a fight to choose a speaker in a disputed election. But with his supporters and foes seemingly stalemated, feelings of both boredom and desperation seemed increasingly evident with no end in sight.
