Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy Kevin Owen McCarthyBattle looms over funding for Trump's border wall The Hill's Morning Report — Washington resets after midterms, Sessions fired Conservative groups call for new slate of House GOP leaders MORE (R-Calif.) has dropped out of the race for House Speaker, shocking Capitol Hill and raising questions about who can lead the House Republican Conference. 
 
 Republicans were to meet Thursday at noon to elect a new Speaker, following Rep. John Boehner John Andrew BoehnerMcMorris Rodgers won't run for GOP leadership Newly empowered House Dems eyeing Trump need to learn from Gingrich debacle Media’s blame-Trump narrative ignores midterm realities MORE's news that he would retire at the end of the month. Instead, they received the surprising news from McCarthy. 
 
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 "I think I shocked some of you," McCarthy joked to reporters after his bombshell. 
 
 He said he would stay on as majority leader, but believed Republicans needed to unify around a "new face." 
 
 "I feel good about the decision. I think we're only going to be stronger," he said. 
 
 McCarthy suggested it was unclear whether he could have won the 218 votes on the floor needed to be elected Speaker. 
 
 "I don't want to go to the floor and win with 220 votes," said the California lawmaker, who cast his decision as putting his conference first. "I think best think for our party is to win with 247 votes." 
 
 McCarthy was also asked at the brief press conference about a letter this week from Rep. Walter Jones (R-N.C.) that called on any leadership candidate with skeletons in their closet to drop out. Asked if his decision was influenced by that letter, McCarty shook his head no and said, "C'mon, no." 
 
 McCarthy stunned his his colleagues by telling them of his decision as they were preparing to cast ballots for Speaker. The election was immediately postponed. 
 
 Rep. Tom Rooney (R-Fla.) said McCarthy's withdrawal drove some lawmakers to tears. 
 
 "The person next to me was crying," he said. 
 
 Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.), who has been a fierce critic of the current GOP leadership team, said McCarthy spoke only briefly to the conference. 
 
 "Kevin McCarthy said, 'I am not the one,' and it looks like he's pulling out of the race," he said. 
 
 "He said, 'I'm not the one, I'm not the one that can unite the conference and get to 218." 
 
 Huelskamp said McCarthy's supporters "all looked in shock to me." 
 
 
 
 "They were lined up to give him a hug," he said. "I saw tears in eyes. 
 
 
 
 "It's the strangest thing I've seen in a long time." 
 
 Rooney held out some long-shot hope that McCarthy could be persuaded out of his decision, and said Boehner (R-Ohio) would likely have to stay on longer than expected. 
 
 "I hope people can talk some sense into Kevin," said Rooney, a backer of the majority leader. 
 
 McCarthy had struggled to win over conservatives, and while he was the favorite to win the closed-door vote, conservatives insisted he did not have the votes on the floor to win election. 
 
 The House Freedom Caucus, a 40-plus group of conservative lawmakers, endorsed Rep. Daniel Webster (R-Fla.) on Thursday for the Speakership. A third Republican, Rep. Jason Chaffetz (Utah), also had challenged McCarthy for the position. Neither Chaffetz nor Webster, however, were seen as having the support McCarthy was expected to gain. 
 
 McCarthy had also been hurt by remarks he made on Fox last week in which he linked the House Benghazi panel to Hillary Clinton's presidential poll numbers. The comments suggested a political motive behind the panel, and forced an apology from McCarthy. 
 
 Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) said he believes the move is "absolutely" the result of those comments. 
 
 Chaffetz, speaking after McCarthy, said he was stunned by the news. 
 
 "What he did was tough," Chaffetz said of McCarthy. 
 
 But the Utah Republican acknowledged he might not be able to build a coalition for Speaker either. "I'm not sure if I'm the right person," Chaffetz said. 
 
 It's not clear what will happen next, though Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) said he could see five or six new candidates step up to run for Speaker after McCarthy's stunner. 
 
 Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, is perhaps the most respected man in his conference and has long been seen as a possible Speaker. 
 
 But he quickly took himself out of the running, saying after McCarthy's decision he did not want the job. 
 
 "Kevin McCarthy is best person to lead the House, and so I’m disappointed in this decision," said Ryan, who nominated his longtime friend. 
 
 "Now it is important that we, as a Conference, take time to deliberate and seek new candidates for the speakership," he continued. "While I am grateful for the encouragement I’ve received, I will not be a candidate. I continue to believe I can best serve the country and this conference as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee.” 
 
 Another possible candidate could be Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), the chairman of the House panel investigating the 2012 terrorist attack in Benghazi, Libya. Chaffetz and others sought to convince Gowdy to run last week, but he declined. 
 
 Asked after the McCarthy news if he would run for Speaker, Gowdy responded with an emphatic "no." 
 
 One lawmaker floated senior Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) for Speaker. Cole, the lawmakers said, is viewed on Capitol Hill as a voice of reason — though conservatives would see him as similar to Boehner or McCarthy. 
 
 Others said it is possible the House could look for a "caretaker" Speaker who could take the chamber beyond next year's election. 
 
 Rohrabacher said members are already discussing such a situation. 
 
 "We just need to get through the next election and then determine what our goals are," he said, floating senior members such as Cole, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Hal Rogers (Ky.) and Texas Rep. Joe Barton. ||||| poster="http://v.politico.com/images/1155968404/201510/2216/1155968404_4543333111001_4543288803001-vs.jpg?pubId=1155968404" true Rep. Kevin McCarthy explains why he isn't running for Speaker of the House. The House GOP's historic implosion McCarthy's stunning move leaves the House with no apparent line of succession to power. 
 
 House Republicans are in a historic state of chaos, torn between two ideological poles with no clear sense of who will serve as their next leader, and no idea of their governing agenda with several legislative battles in the coming weeks. 
 
 California Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s decision to abandon his bid for speaker Thursday afternoon just moments before a planned closed party election has set off a leadership scramble not seen in more than a decade. What makes this even more extraordinary, though, is there's no obvious line of succession to power. 
 
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 McCarthy was dogged by a host of factors. He thought he would win the speakership, but be crippled by the same problems that dogged Speaker John Boehner. He said Republicans created the Select Committee on Benghazi to harm Hillary Clinton’s chances of winning the presidency, which alarmed Republicans. 
 
 Now, the party is searching for a new answer. 
 
 The general consensus inside the House Republican Conference is that there is just one man standing who can garner the 218 votes needed to be speaker: Wisconsin Rep. Paul Ryan. He has resisted calls to run in the past, but the top two Republicans — Boehner and McCarthy — have asked him to reconsider. He has canceled his fundraising appearances for the next 48 hours, and is considering a bid. 
 
 Republicans are floating the names of other lawmakers, including Reps. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, Mike Conaway and Bill Flores of Texas, John Kline of Minnesota and Tom Cole of Oklahoma. Some of these men — most notably the retiring Kline — have been mentioned as caretakers of the office until after the 2016 elections. Reps. Daniel Webster of Florida and Jason Chaffetz of Utah, the two men who ran against McCarthy, are still in the race for the speakership. 
 
 Because McCarthy will remain majority leader, there will be no race for his position or whip. Reps. Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Tom Price of Georgia have both spent the past several weeks running for the majority leader job. Reps. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina, Pete Sessions of Texas and Markwayne Mullin of Oklahoma will all be forced to abandon their campaigns for whip. 
 
 Boehner planned to resign effective Oct. 30, but he says he will now stay on as speaker until Republicans select his successor. Boehner canceled an appearance on NBC’s “The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon” after McCarthy withdrew from consideration. 
 
 The chaos harkens to another dark time for Republicans. In Dec. 1998, during the impeachment proceedings of President Bill Clinton, Louisiana Rep. Bob Livingston plunged the House into chaos by admitting to extramarital affairs, and resigning from Congress. Livingston was speaker designate, slated to take the job from the outgoing Newt Gingrich. The admission stunned Capitol Hill, and the country. 
 
 Rep. Tom Delay of Texas, then majority whip, sensed an opportunity, and rallied his vote-counting operation behind Rep. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). Within a matter of hours, while other Republicans hesitated to run for speaker, DeLay lined up the votes for Hastert. The race was over before the other hopefuls could organize. Hastert helped soothe the battered Republican Conference. To this day, he is the longest-serving Republican speaker. 
 
 Seventeen years later, the Republicans need a soothing force once again. And that process will begin Friday morning, when the party retreats to a room in the Capitol basement for a special GOP conference meeting. Party leaders want to get the Republican lawmakers on the same page. 
 
 “If we're going to be strong, we need to be united,” McCarthy said at a news conference after his announcement. He said the party needs a “new face,” and he did not want to win the job with the bare minimum level of support. 
 
 The conservative House Freedom Caucus continues to loom large. The bloc of roughly 40 Republicans endorsed Webster Wednesday, and vowed to vote together in the closed party election. 
 
 That was a key moment for McCarthy, demonstrating to him how difficult the contest would have been, he said. For a period of time, McCarthy considered forcing Republicans to vote in an open ballot to show he could get the 218 votes needed to win the speakership on the floor. 
 
 Instead, he stepped down. 
 

– House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy dropped a political bombshell on his Republican colleagues Thursday morning by dropping out of the race for House speaker. McCarthy was the heavy favorite to succeed the retiring John Boehner at the end of the month, though he faced long-shot challenges from Reps. Jason Chaffetz and Daniel Webster, the latter being the nominee of the conservative House Freedom Caucus. Republicans were supposed to pick their nominee Thursday, but McCarthy's announcement forced the vote to be postponed. Even had he won this vote, it was unclear whether McCarthy would be able to get the necessary 218 votes when the full House voted on Oct. 29—thanks to the conservative opposition from within his own party. "I think I shocked some of you," McCarthy said to reporters afterward, per the Hill. "I don't want to go to the floor and win with 220 votes. I think best thing for our party is to win with 247 votes." McCarthy, who said he would remain in his post as majority leader, said Republicans needed a "new face" to rally around. So what next? Well, "chaos" is the word used by Politico to describe what's going on, pointing out that it's hard to come up with another name capable of getting the necessary votes. Paul Ryan, long considered a strong contender, reiterated Thursday that he's not interested. (There's an outside chance that Boehner himself would stay on, at least temporarily.)