House Republicans failed to choose a leader for a second day in a row on Wednesday, as a group of particularly hard-line conservatives repeatedly ignored former President Donald Trump's call to rally around his ally Kevin McCarthy.
This is reported by Reuters.
After three failed votes and a round of closed-door negotiations, McCarthy is no closer to winning the Speaker of the House post, which is second in line to the presidency.
Lawmakers voted to go home for the evening and try again at 12pm (5pm GMT) on Thursday.
The stalemate cast doubt on Republicans' ability to govern the country for the next two years as they stumbled on what is usually a routine vote early in the legislative session.
Members of the House of Representatives must first name the leader before swearing in individual members and beginning legislative work.
McCarthy, of California, has been the top Republican in the House since 2019 and led his party's successful effort to win control of the chamber in the 2022 midterm elections.
But he has now failed to pass six consecutive votes over two days as a group of 20 hard-line conservatives who see him as ideologically unsound refused to back him, leaving him short of the 218 votes needed to win the job.
McCarthy's supporters grew increasingly disillusioned with each passing day.
The last time the House of Representatives failed to elect a speaker on the first ballot was in 1923, when nine ballots were taken.
McCarthy said he is making progress. "I don't think that today's vote has any significance, but I think that the vote in the future will," he told reporters after a meeting with opponents.
Read more about the problems surrounding the election of the Speaker of the House of Representatives in the article Trump's Revenge: Why the New Majority in the US Congress Blocked the Election of the Speaker.