McCarthy quietly wages the other midterm campaign -- for House speaker
DES MOINES —House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is hardly the first politician with national aspirations to find himself flipping pork chops here at the Iowa State Fair. But it’s the speaker’s gavel, not the presidency, that has brought the California Republican to the Pork Tent.
Donning a red monogrammed apron and standing alongside Rep. David Young — a two-term GOP incumbent in a toss-up Iowa district Democrats are targeting as part of their effort to win control of the House — he mugs for a local news photographer as the two lawmakers wield spatulas and munch on batons of brown-sugar pork belly.
“Have you had this bacon on a stick yet?” McCarthy asks Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds (R), who has attended her share of state fairs. “They’re fantastic.”
McCarthy’s appearance at this well-known hotbed of political ambition reflects a simmering battle over the future of the House Republican leadership, and the 53-year-old lawmaker is seeking to make it clear that he intends to remain atop that hierarchy.
He has spent his August trekking across the country, campaigning with embattled candidates in multiple states, adding to a fundraising haul that already exceeds $40 million for the election cycle and doling out advice, encouragement and occasional ultimatums to the Republicans who will determine whether the GOP will hold on to its precarious 23-seat majority.
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