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View Winners → Politics Mar 02, 2021
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Bakersfield) appears at a news conference on Capitol Hill in June.
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By JENNIFER HABERKORN, EVAN HALPER
WASHINGTON — When Donald Trump won the GOP’s 2016 presidential nomination, most Republicans kept him at arm’s length. Bakersfield Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy did what had worked for him for years, first in Sacramento and then in Washington: acharm offensive.
The House minority leader’s trademark affability — he has a mental Rolodex of politicians’ favorite snacks, hometowns and kids’ names — and his abrupt pivot to become Trump’s most loyal ally in the House earned him the new president’s nickname, “My Kevin.”Now McCarthy sees a chance to ride that relationship with Trump into the House majority and a job he’s coveted for years: speaker.
But California’s most powerful Republican is charting a starkly different path to the 2022 midterm election than some other senior Republicans who want to make a clean break with the unpredictable Trump and reclaim their party from those who back far-right conspiracy theories, such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.). Instead of cutting anyone out, McCarthy is trying to keep everyone in. He’s maintaining ties with Trump and took no punitive actions against Greene, while simultaneously defending GOP […]