As Kevin McCarthy was on the brink of losing his speakership, some of his allies delivered a not-so-veiled threat to GOP Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina: If you vote to oust McCarthy, the party might not be willing to help raise money for your race.
The warning to Mace, which was described by a source familiar with the conversation, is a sign of just how seriously the speaker drama has rankled the Republican party, with money often used as a powerful carrot – or stick – in Washington.
Yet Mace, a Republican who could face a competitive race and will need a well-funded campaign war chest to win reelection, ultimately joined seven other GOP lawmakers and all Democrats to sink McCarthy. And it’s not the only repercussion she could now be facing for her career-defining moment of defiance: Sources told CNN that there’s discussion among members on the Republican Governance Group about voting to kick her out of the moderate-leaning group.
It’s just one of many examples of the fallout from Tuesday’s stunning vote to remove the sitting speaker, which has reverberated through both sides of the Capitol and left a bitterly divided GOP scrambling to pick up the pieces. Much of the furor is directed at Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz, the ringleader of the McCarthy rebellion. But Republicans are also turning their fire on their Democratic colleagues as well, furious that they sided with Gaetz to throw the House into chaos and let McCarthy be punished for funding the government with their votes.
And it all comes as a GOP leadership scramble to succeed McCarthy has begun to take shape, even as rank-and-file Republicans warn the speaker candidates that there is ample work that must be done to repair the frayed relations within their badly divided conference.
Rep. Kelly Armstrong, a North Dakota Republican and close McCarthy ally, said there are a “lot of raw nerves”…
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