New Congress live updates: What's next after Kevin McCarthy's speakership win
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.
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With Democrat David Trone back on floor, McCarthy will need 217 votes to win
Rep. David Trone, D-Md., is back on the House floor for this 13th round of voting.
Assuming he does vote, that will bring support for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries to 212 votes and the total number of votes cast to 432. That would mean the new magic number McCarthy would need to win the speakership is 217 votes -- four more than he got in the previous round.
--ABC News' Rick Klein
House moves on to 13th vote for speaker
The House is moving full steam ahead with another vote for speaker.
Rep.-elect James Comer of Kentucky stood up shortly after Clerk Cheryl Johnson announced the results of the 12th round to nominate McCarthy.
"In a Republican majority, under speaker Kevin McCarthy, this broken Congress will finally be fixed, and we will return to regular order and drag those senators kicking and screaming along with us every step of the way," Comer said.
Rep. Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, nominated Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for speaker. No Republican alternative to McCarthy was nominated this round.
7 far-right Republicans remain holdouts
While Kevin McCarthy finally gained momentum in the 12th round of voting, flipping 14 votes in his favor, he still faces seven Republicans opposing his bid for speaker -- more than he can afford to lose.
Reps.-elect Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., Lauren Boebert, R-Colo., Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., Bob Good, R-Va., Andy Harris, R-Md., Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., and Eli Crane, R-Ariz., have voted against McCarthy every round.
The incumbent lawmakers are part of the House Freedom Caucus and among the 139 House Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election two years ago.
Crane, a businessman and former Navy SEAL who flipped his seat following redistricting, and with Trump's endorsement, has trafficked in election conspiracy theories and repeatedly called on his home state of Arizona to overturn the 2020 results.
McCarthy flips 14 GOP holdouts but still falls short of speaker's gavel
Fourteen of the Republicans who'd been opposing McCarthy's bid switched their stance in the 12th round of voting.
But it wasn't enough for him to clinch the speaker's gavel. McCarthy received 213 votes, still short of the majority needed.
He gained support from Reps.-elect Dan Bishop of North Carolina, Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, Michael Cloud of Texas, Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Byron Donalds of Florida, Anna Paulina Luna of Florida, Mary Miller of Illinois, Ralph Norman of South Carolina, Scott Perry of Pennsylvania, Chip Roy of Texas, Keith Self of Texas, Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Paul Gosar of Arizona and Andrew Ogles of Tennessee.
Perry, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, cited a "framework for an agreement" as he explained his shift in a Twitter post.
"We’re at a turning point," Perry wrote.
The flips follow a key concession from McCarthy to make it even easier to remove him as speaker if he is elected. Under the deal, a single member from either party could trigger an up-or-down simple majority vote on whether to remove the speaker.