Shell shock over midterm results is shaking up the House GOP conference ahead of internal leadership elections next week.House Republicans are still almost certain to capture control of the lower chamber, but their majority will be far smaller than anticipated and Democrats managed to capture or hold a number of key districts. While there is widespread disappointment within the GOP over an expected red wave looking more like a red ripple, there is not consensus on who or what is to blame.  

House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), who is tasked with getting House Republicans elected, both want to move up the ranks in the next session, but both risk becoming targets of GOP anger about the midterms. 

“This is like the epitome of overpromising and under-delivering, which is something that you do not want to do in politics,” said a senior GOP leadership staff member granted anonymity to speak candidly. “This is seriously disappointing, and it will have wide implications for people in leadership.” 

What those implications will be for McCarthy — who suggested a year ago that Republicans could flip 60 seats or more — are unclear. Few expect any serious challenge to his Speakership vote, but the right flank of the conference is starting to direct anger his way. 

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.), the former chair of the confrontational conservative House Freedom Caucus, said of McCarthy’s Speakership chances in an interview with former Newsmax host Emerald Robinson on Wednesday: “Not so fast.” 

“We were told we were going to have an incredible, incredible wave, and if that would’ve been the case — I mean, 20-, 30-, 40-seat margin, anywhere in there, you would say, ‘OK, Kevin’s the presumptive Republican nominee for Speaker.’ But I think we need to have a discussion. He’s backpedaled on things like impeachment,” Biggs said. 

“If we’re going to go in for eight months of performance art instead of really getting things done, then we will fail in preparing for a 2024 election where we have to win to get the White House, the Senate and the House back,” Biggs said. 

The GOP leader has given firebrand right-flank members like Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) a seat at the table in the hope of shoring up his Speakership bid and to avoid the exact kind of threat that Biggs forecasted.  

But some say that strategy seems to have backfired. Former George W. Bush speechwriter Marc Thiessen commented on Fox News that Greene being positioned behind McCarthy at a platform rollout event in Pennsylvania gave fuel to “Democrats’ anti-MAGA strategy.” 

“You’ve got to put your foot down” to prevent the “crazies” from running the conference and trying to exploit a slimmed majority, the senior GOP staffer said.  

McCarthy and members of his whip team started making calls to members on Wednesday to shore up his votes for Speaker and believe he will prevail in the election. Those arguing in McCarthy’s favor say that the GOP taking control of the House may be one of the only bright spots for Republicans in the midterms and that this is not a situation in which House Republicans missed out on a wave seen in the Senate and other statewide races. 

“Really, the top of the ticket in a lot of these states and a lot of the races really hurt us,” said Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pa.), who ran unopposed this year and is supportive of Emmer and McCarthy. Those suggesting McCarthy could be in trouble comes down to “saber rattling,” he said. 

Rep. David Joyce (R-Ohio), chair of the moderate Republican Governance Group, agreed that leaders helped deliver gains in places like New York and that poor top-of-ticket candidates in some states dragged down candidates who should have won. 

Emmer officially launched a bid for House majority whip, the No. 3 position, on Wednesday. He faces two competitors for the post: Chief Deputy Whip Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) and Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), chair of the Republican Study Committee, the largest conservative caucus in the House. 

Emmer, who was careful to not make predictions about the final House breakdown ahead of the midterms, brushed off the prospect of the majority margin affecting his level of support. 

“I don’t know how” the slimmer majority would affect his whip bid, Emmer told reporters Wednesday. “We delivered. This is exactly what we thought we were going to do. We’re going to deliver a new Republican majority.” 

Banks and Ferguson, meanwhile, could benefit from any hesitance about Emmer with the conference elections happening quickly on Tuesday. 

Banks is running on his conservative credentials that he built up in the Republican Study Committee and his relationships with influential outside conservative groups. In a letter to members formally announcing his candidacy for whip on Wednesday, Banks pledged to be a “bridge between members and leadership and committee chairs.” He noted that he would be the only veteran in leadership. 

Concerned Women for America, a right-wing Christian group, endorsed Banks’s whip bid on Monday, and Donald Trump Jr. has also expressed support for Banks while publicly criticizing Emmer. 

But strengthening and maintaining a cozy relationship with Trump World may be off-putting to some members. The former president is taking heat for boosting candidates who either lost or were perceived to drag down House candidates. 

“Letting this guy be at the helm of the ship will screw you over, it’ll screw your conference over, it’ll screw your prospects for being able to lead the party like you want to. And I hope that’s what they’re realizing,” a senior House GOP aide said.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) on Monday said she “absolutely” draws a line between last month’s attack on her husband, Paul Pelosi, 82, and the Jan. 6, 2021 attack on the Capitol.

The Speaker sat with CNN’s Anderson Cooper for her first sit-down interview since the brutal assault on her husband at their San Francisco home. During that conversation, Cooper quoted President Biden, who, in remarks last week, drew a similarity between the assault on Paul Pelosi, and the Capitol riot.

“The assailant entered the home, asking: 'Where is Nancy? Where is Nancy?' Those were the same words used by the mob when they stormed the United States Capitol on Jan. 6,” Cooper said, quoting Biden.

“That's right,” Pelosi responded.

Asked by Cooper if she draws the same line, Pelosi said “absolutely.”

“There's no question. It's the same -- the same thing, and a copycat or whatever it happens to be, inflamed by the same misrepresentation,” she added.

An alleged assailant broke a glass door and entered the Pelosis’ San Francisco home in the early hours of Oct. 28 and struck Paul Pelosi in the head with a hammer, authorities said. He was transported to a hospital after the attack where he underwent successful surgery to treat a skull fracture and injuries to his right arm and hands, and was released on Thursday.

Authorities and a source, however, have since revealed that the Speaker was the intended target of the incident.

According to the Justice Department’s affidavit, the alleged attacker — who authorities have identified as David DePape, 42 — threatened to hold the Speaker hostage and break her kneecaps.

“DEPAPE stated that he was going to hold Nancy hostage and talk to her. If Nancy were to tell DEPAPE the ‘truth,’ he would let her go, and if she ‘lied,’ he was going to break ‘her kneecaps,’” the affidavit reads.

DePape also told authorities he was “looking for Nancy,” according to the charging documents.

A source briefed on the attack told The Hill shortly after the incident that before the assault occurred, the suspect confronted Paul Pelosi and shouted “where is Nancy? Where is Nancy.”

The phrase led some to draw parallels to the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol, when rioters who stormed the building demanded to know where the Speaker was, including some who ransacked her office.

In one video of the riot, presented at former President Trump’s impeachment proceedings, a voice asks “where are you, Nancy? We’re looking for you.”

“Nancy. Oh Nancy. Nancy. Where are you, Nancy?” the voice adds.

On Monday, the Speaker told CNN that the attack was “a flame that was fueled by misinformation and all the rest of that, which is most unfortunate. It shouldn't — has no place in our democracy.”

Multiple sources reported after the attack that DePape posted about conspiracy theories online, including ones regarding COVID-19 vaccines and the Capitol riot, and had posted about QAnon.

Later in the interview, Pelosi called for a message to be sent to Republicans to stop its engagement with misinformation.

“I do think that there has to be some message to the Republicans to stop, to stop the disinformation, because that is, without any question, a source of what happened on January 6, and the denial of that, and then the source of what's happening to me now,” she said.

Since the attack on Paul Pelosi, some figures have elevated conspiracy theories casting doubt on the incident, including new Twitter CEO Elon Musk and former President Trump. Asked what she has to say to those individuals, the Speaker responded “it’s really sad for the country.”

“It's really sad for the country that people of that high visibility would separate themselves from the facts and the truth in such a blatant way. It's really sad. And it is traumatizing to those affected by it,” she said.

“They don't care about that, obviously. But it is -- it's destructive to the unity that we want to have in our country. But I don't have anything to say to them. I mean, I — we have nothing — there would be no common ground to have any conversation with them,” she added.