What Next for Kevin McCarthy?

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s departure from office will give him the chance to “cash-in” on his political career in the public sector, experts have suggested.

The California Republican confirmed in an opinion piece for the Wall Street Journal that he will not seek re-election in 2024 and will depart the House by the end of the year.

“I never could have imagined the journey when I first threw my hat into the ring. I go knowing I left it all on the field—as always, with a smile on my face. And looking back, I wouldn’t have had it any other way,” McCarthy wrote. “Only in America.”

McCarthy leaving office tops off a turbulent time for the recently ousted House Speaker, who has gone from being third in line to the presidency to an outgoing congressman in just a few weeks after falling out with a small faction of the GOP.

Writing in the WSJ, McCarthy vowed that “my work is only getting started” without specifying further. Newsweek has emailed his office for comment.

Reacting to his upcoming departure from Congress, Christopher Devine, an associate professor of political science at the University of Dayton in Ohio, suggested that McCarthy’s future lies outside of politics after getting historically voted out as House Speaker after eight members of his party, led by Florida’s Matt Gaetz, supported a motion to vacate. Representative Mike Johnson eventually replaced him.

“His goal was to lead the House, not just be a member of it. I’m not sure what influence on politics McCarthy will have out of office, or if he’ll want to return at some point,” Devine told Newsweek.

“Quite possibly, he’ll try to cash in now, as other former congressional leaders have done, as a business executive or lobbyist. McCarthy put so much into climbing the Republican ranks in the House over the past two decades. If all he gets out of it is a nine-month tenure as Speaker of the House—the third shortest in history—and a humiliating exit at the hands of Matt Gaetz and company, to him that’s probably not much better than coming away with just ‘a lousy t-shirt.’

“With little hope of reclaiming the speakership, McCarthy might look for compensation in the private sector, instead,” Devine said.

Even before his short tenure as House Speaker, McCarthy faced a battle with MAGA and hardline Republicans. In January 2023, McCarthy needed 15 rounds of voting before he was finally elected Speaker as many House Republicans, including Gaetz, refused to support him for the role. McCarthy was elected in the 15th round after six Republicans withheld their ballot, thus lowering the required majority threshold.

One of the concessions McCarthy made to appease the more conservative members of his party to back him was changing Congress rules so that just one member could introduce a motion to vacate to force a vote on removing the House Speaker.

This move eventually was his downfall, as Gaetz went on to call a motion to vacate after McCarthy worked with the Democrats to push through a stopgap funding bill to prevent a government shutdown.

On October 3, the House voted 216-210 to support the motion to vacate that put forward by Gaetz, with eight Republicans joining 208 Democrats in voting to remove McCarthy.

Bernard Tamas, an associate professor of political science at Valdosta State University, Georgia, and author of the book, The Demise and Rebirth of American Third Parties, said that while McCarthy was “in no way moderate,” he was effectively pushed out of the Republican Party “for not giving in to the demands of its extremist right-wing” which could have knock on effects for the GOP and U.S. politics as whole.

“As the party continues to lurch more and more in the MAGA direction, Republicans who have long been considered solid conservatives, like Mitt Romney and Liz Cheney, have been sidelined and pressured into leaving if not outrightly ousted,” Tamas told Newsweek.

“Historically, it is at moments like these when moderate political spaces are made vacant that the potential of third-party activism is at its highest.”

With regards to McCarthy’s future, Tamas said that while the Republican has “not clearly stated what comes next,” the outgoing California congressman appears to be “headed towards the private sector.”

McCarthy’s decision to leave his seat a year early could affect control of the House, with the GOP’s already slim 221-213 majority following the expulsion of New York Rep. George Santos reducing further once McCarthy leaves.

Special elections for both Santos’ and McCarthy’s seats will be held in the coming months, meaning the GOP faces having an even smaller margin in the House if both races are won by Democrats, hindering the party’s hopes of pushing through legislation in the lower chamber.