Washington— Rep. Matt Gaetz, Florida Republican lead the effort for oust former Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy last fall, will easily defeat McCarthy-linked primary challenge Tuesday, projects CBS News.
With about 72% of the vote counted, Gaetz was leading challenger Aaron Dimmock, a former Navy officer, by a margin of 71% to 28%.
“Kevin McCarthy is driven by revenge and pettiness and I think some of the soul searching is destructive,” Gaetz told CBS News in an interview Tuesday. “I’m going to the 119th Congress, and they’re going to whatever the next stage of grief is.”
In a social media post, Dimmock said it was “not the result we wanted.”
“Running as a first-time candidate against a powerful career politician is not easy, but I am honored to have the opportunity to be that alternative,” he wrote.
McCarthy last year became the first person in history to be ousted in a House vote from the speakership after Gaetz moved forward with a motion to vacate. Joined by all Democrats, only eight Republicans voted to oust McCarthy from the role, but enough to remove him from the post. Republicans expressed frustration with maneuvers to avoid a government shutdown. And a few months later, after drawn out the fight between the GOP to choose a new speaker, California Republican retreat from the room.
OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images
But the McCarthy-Gaetz feud didn’t die with McCarthy’s speaker.
Gaetz is seeking to hold the Sunshine State’s 1st Congressional District in the Florida panhandle. Main is the last challenge related to the former speaker after his dismissal.
“Pac Kevin McCarthy spent over $3 million trying to beat me and he didn’t succeed,” Gaetz said. “So it shows the limits of corrupt big money in Washington in places like Northwest Florida where there is a strong relationship between me and the voters.”
Earlier this year, Rep. Bob Good, who joined Gaetz in the effort to oust McCarthy, narrowly lost the primary in Virginia to a McCarthy-aligned challenger. But McCarthy’s other efforts have had mixed results, with Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina survived the McCarthy-backed primary challenge itself in June. Others who voted to oust the former speaker did not seek re-election.
For Gaetz, it was the latest in a so-called McCarthy revenge rally, which featured a blitz of ads by McCarthy-linked groups against Florida Republicans, pointing to allegations against him — including that he paid minors for sex.
Department of Justice last year refused to charge Gaetz has since conducted an investigation into the alleged sex trafficking, and Gaetz has denied all allegations against him. But in June, the House Ethics Committee, after speaking to more than a dozen witnesses and reviewing thousands of pages of documents, said some of the allegations against Gaetz had merit. further review.
McCarthy has claimed his dismissal was due to Gaetz’s personal grievances with the former speaker, as he allowed an ethics investigation into Gaetz’s alleged actions to continue. Gaetz said he didn’t know when the investigation might end and accused McCarthy of trying to “burn” him.
Whatever the reason, their feud still feels like last month’s Republican National Convention. Gaetz heckled McCarthy during a live interview on the floor of the convention, saying “if you take that stage, you’ll get booed off it.” McCarthy continued the interview without engaging Gaetz, describing the man who orchestrated the effort to oust him as an “ethics complaint about paying, sleeping with a 17-year-old.”
Still, entering Tuesday, Gaetz, a close ally of former President Donald Trump, was expected to win the GOP nomination and easily win the general election in a solidly red district in November. But the race could be damaging in the long run for Gaetz, who is widely believed to be seeking a 2026 bid for the Florida governor’s house.
Gaetz said in a social media post on Monday that he “has no plans to run for Governor,” saying he likes his current job and wants to “help President Trump in Washington.”
“If the plans change, I hope I have an incompetent opposition like these dorks,” he said.
