Speaker After 15 Rounds of Voting

After 15 excruciating rounds of voting, Kevin McCarthy has finally been named as the House Speaker of the US House of Representatives.

After four days of ballots, McCarthy flipped more than a dozen conservative holdouts to become supporters, including the chairman of the chamber’s Freedom Caucus, leaving him just a few shy of seizing the gavel for the new congress, newswires said Saturday.

As the house resumed for the late night session McCarthy had been on the cusp of victory in the 14th round but he fell one vote short.

In the end, McCarthy was named speaker of the house with 216 votes, after some representatives left their vote as "present", dropping the tally required for the speaker bid.

With tensions high internally among Republicans, McCarthy was seen confronting representatives Lauren Boebert of Colorado and Matt Gaetz of Florida, who both voted "present". If one changed their mind, McCarthy would reach the necessary threshold to become speaker.

It is the first time in 100 years that the vote for speaker of the US House has not been voted in after the first round of voting.