McCarthy finally won the speaker's gavel after historic 15 rounds of voting.
The House Republican leadership standoff ended early Saturday morning with Kevin McCarthy winning the speaker's gavel on a historic 15th vote.
It was the longest such election since 1859.
The drama stretched into a fourth day Friday with three more failed votes to decide on a speaker after 11 others over Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday -- the last one ending in a heated one-vote loss at the hands of holdout Matt Gaetz.
McCarthy had been stymied by a small group of hardliners demanding concessions to reshape how the House is run and legislation it prioritizes.
McCarthy has so far gotten fewer votes to be speaker in each round on Tuesday than he did when the last Congress convened in 2021.
In 2021, when Republicans were in the minority, McCarthy got 209 votes from every Republican voting. In the three rounds Tuesday, with voting continuing, he got 203, 203 and 202.
On social media, some attentive viewers were quick to notice a conversation between Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Republican Rep. Paul Gosar on Tuesday afternoon amid the ongoing speaker votes. Ocasio-Cortez has previously criticized Gosar for a now-deleted social media video that showed animated violence against her.
Ocasio-Cortez explained the interaction to ABC News, saying that House GOP leader McCarthy had reportedly made claims within his conference that he could convince some Democratic members to leave the chamber, lowering the threshold needed to elect McCarthy as speaker.
Gosar, who has not been voting for McCarthy, sought clarification from her, she said.
"We would never do that," Ocasio-Cortez said.
-ABC News' Gabe Ferris
"We stay in until we win," McCarthy said as he headed back onto the House floor ahead of the third round.
After huddling with Reps. Jim Jordan, Steve Scalise, Patrick McHenry and a few others off the floor, McCarthy told ABC News on his way back to the House floor that the prolonged vote was exactly what he was expecting to happen.
"This isn't about me; this is about the conference now," he said.
"If anybody wants to earn something, committee slots or others, you go through the conference to do that. You don't get it by leveraging people. It just doesn't happen," he added.
McCarthy disputed that he hasn't shown any progress throughout the afternoon.
"They put [Rep.] Jim Jordan [up as a candidate for speaker]. Remember how they all said they had a secret candidate. Their secret candidate nominated me, so where do they go now?"
-ABC News’ Katherine Faulders and Allison Pecorin
Rep. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., switched his vote for speaker after voting for McCarthy in the first two rounds.
Donalds, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, backed Rep. Jim Jordan in the third round of voting. If every candidate who voted for Jordan on the second ballot does so again, the Ohioan will get at least 20 votes.
