Who Is Andy Biggs? More on the Man Challenging McCarthy for House Speaker

Arizona Representative Andy Biggs intends to challenge Kevin McCarthy for speaker of the house.

The far-right lawmaker announced his plan Monday night on Newsmax, as Republicans creep ever closer to controlling the House of Representatives.

Biggs was elected to Congress in 2016, when he campaigned on the goal of advancing then-President Donald Trump’s political agenda. He is a former chair of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the most conservative politicians on the Hill.

Biggs has been subpoenaed by the committee investigating the January 6 attack on the Capitol, but he has refused to cooperate. He has also made cruel jokes about the brutal attack on current House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s husband.

“We’re going to show Nancy Pelosi the door very shortly,” he said during an election night event. “Don’t let it hit you on the backside, Nancy. She’s losing the gavel but finding the hammer.”

McCarthy, the House minority leader, has made no secret of his ambitions to move up in the chamber. Despite the distinct lack of the promised “red wave” on election night, McCarthy was already campaigning to be speaker of the House.

But his party is clearly not unified behind him. Dozens of conservative leaders on Monday penned a letter calling for a delay in the House leadership vote until next month.

And although far-right Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene has urged her colleagues to back McCarthy, Biggs is not the only challenger he will face. Representative Steve Scalise is also running to be majority leader. Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz has said he backs Jim Jordan for House speaker, and Virginia Representative Bob Good also spoke out against McCarthy.

McCarthy seems to be getting desperate. The Wall Street Journal reported Monday that the minority leader’s team had made several calls to Texas Democratic Representative Henry Cuellar asking him to switch parties, giving McCarthy an extra vote.

Cuellar turned them down, the Journal said, citing anonymous sources familiar with the calls.

It looks like the potshots Kari Lake took on the campaign trail are coming back to bite her.

People including Representative Liz Cheney and Meghan McCain, both of whom Lake insulted while running for Arizona governor, celebrated the MAGA Republican’s loss Tuesday.

On the campaign trail, Lake had embraced conspiracy theories and bashed both Cheney and McCain’s father, John McCain. When Cheney released an attack ad against Lake, the former Phoenix news anchor mockingly thanked her for the “anti-endorsement.”

Lake had also called late Arizona Senator John McCain a “loser” and boasted after winning the primary that she and her supporters “drove a stake through the heart of the McCain machine.” At one of her final rallies before Election Day, she said if there were any McCain supporters present, they should “get the hell out.”

And then she lost Monday night to Democrat Katie Hobbs.

“Beautiful morning to all of you,” Meghan McCain tweeted Tuesday, sharing a link to a National Review article titled “McCain Republicans Vote, Too.”

She also posted a photo of her father and Lake the night before.

Cheney retweeted Lake’s thank you statement and said, “You’re welcome.”

Although the gubernatorial race had come down to the wire, Hobbs had maintained a steady lead over Lake during the entire weeklong vote-counting process.

MSNBC reporter Vaughn Hillyard, who covered Lake for the past 18 months, was clear on why she lost.

Lake “predicated her campaign on trying to sell” Donald Trump’s conspiracy that he really won the 2020 election, Hillyard said, pointing out that Arizona has “rejected Trumpism” for the past three election cycles.

She had campaigned with major Trump allies such as Steve Bannon, and promoted Trumpist messages including white supremacy and attacking election officials. And then she—and a slew of other Trump-backed candidates—lost big on election night.

Lake “was the latest one to fall, essentially making it a clean sweep,” Hillyard said. “And now Donald Trump is going to go and try to run on the very message that all these people lost on.”

On October 11, Tulsi Gabbard proudly announced her departure from the Democratic Party. Calling on “fellow common sense independent-minded Democrats” to join her, Gabbard wasted no time on her new path, endorsing 13 Republicans before the midterm elections.

Many of the races were high-stakes. Among Gabbard’s endorsements were election denialists and conspiracy theorists.

Ten out of the 13 candidates she endorsed went on to lose their election.

Here is a full list of her failed endorsements:

House

• John Gibbs, Michigan’s 3rd district
• Tom Barrett, Michigan’s 7th district
• Joe Kent, Washington’s 3rd district

Senate

• Blake Masters, Arizona
• Adam Laxalt, Nevada
• Don Bolduc, New Hampshire

Governor

• Kari Lake, Arizona
• Darren Bailey, Illinois
• Tudor Dixon, Michigan
• Lee Zeldin, New York

Only three candidates she endorsed won the election: J.D. Vance for Ohio senator, Mike Lee for Utah senator, and Kristi Noem for South Dakota governor.

Gabbard’s shift to the right is not surprising. Beyond appearing at CPAC this year, she has found a home in right-wing media for some time. There, she has focused less on bringing conservatives closer to her and more on bringing herself closer to them—criticizing the impeachment inquiry into former President Donald Trump as “partisan,” complaining about “open borders,” and even filling in for Tucker Carlson on his show.

Though Gabbard’s endorsements have largely failed, her efforts are paying dividends for her own self-interest. On Monday, MAGA Republican Matt Gaetz floated Gabbard as a potential speaker of the House candidate. That same day, Gabbard officially signed a deal with Fox News to join the network as a paid contributor. And in the evening, Gabbard once again hosted Carlson’s program.

If Gabbard expected to coast into the GOP on a red wave, one bolstered by her “free-thinking” endorsements, she might be disappointed with the results. She’s not alone, of course. Donald Trump has an even longer list of failed endorsements. Now both seek to fail upward—Gabbard, as she becomes a mainstay of the right-wing media sphere, and Trump, who is expected to soon announce his third consecutive bid for the presidency.

Democrat Katie Hobbs was elected Arizona governor Monday in a tight race against mega MAGA Republican Kari Lake, according to a projection from NBC News.

Hobbs maintained a razor-thin lead over Lake, winning with 50.4 percent to 49.6 percent, with 97 percent reporting.

Although gubernatorial races do not normally garner much national attention, the Arizona race has been a nail-biter from start to finish. Arizona has become a crucial swing state after surprisingly going for Joe Biden in the 2020 presidential election. Then-Governor Doug Ducey certified the vote results, but Arizona has been plagued with election falsehoods since.

During early voting, the state reported multiple cases of voter intimidation as armed self-appointed poll watchers turned up at ballot boxes. On Election Day, some of the state’s ballot tabulators malfunctioned, leading many Republicans to misleadingly cry foul.

Lake is one such election denier. Backed by Donald Trump, she embraced conspiracy theories throughout her campaign, such as his insistence the 2020 election was stolen, and would not commit to accepting the results if she lost her own election.

On Election Day, as reports of tabulator issues came out, she claimed Democrats were trying to steal the election and told her supporters not to change polling stations because doing so would make their ballots “likely not count”—a claim reporters immediately debunked.

Counting Arizona ballots stretched for almost a week, before the race was finally called for Hobbs.

Hobbs, a former social worker, struck a much softer-spoken figure on the campaign trail compared to Lake. The Democrat and Arizona secretary of state rose to national prominence when she helped certify the 2020 election results for Biden.

Her first foray into politics was volunteering for one of Kyrsten Sinema’s state races. The senator was notably absent from stumping for Hobbs, but former President Barack Obama hit the campaign trail for her.

Hobbs has outperformed expectations and managed to keep a lead over Lake, even if that margin had narrowed by Monday.

Arizona Representative Ruben Gallego is going after Senator Kyrsten Sinema for being “nowhere to be found” leading up to the midterm elections.

“You did not see [Sinema] at one public event for anybody,” Gallego said Sunday on MSNBC. “And when we have these races that are really in the mix right now, she could have been a very good surrogate to help out a lot of our candidates. And she did nothing, because she only cares about herself.”

On November 9, the day after the election, Sinema tweeted: “Every vote counted, every voice heard. That’s how our democracy works. It may take some time for the results to be finalized, so in the meantime, let’s stay patient. Democracy is always worth the wait.”

Gallego responded, writing, “Thanks for all your help this year. 🙃”

This is not the first time Gallego has gone after Sinema. In January, he tweeted that Sinema and Manchin “care more about arcane Senate rules than protecting your vote,” referring to the pair’s opposition to eliminating the filibuster.

In April, Gallego predicted Sinema would not spend much time stumping for Arizona Democrats. “She doesn’t care about the Democratic movement. She doesn’t care about working-class people,” he said. “She’s not going to be out there with Mark [Kelly]. She’s not going to be out there with our gubernatorial nominee. It’s not her nature.”

Then in July, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, Gallego tweeted at Sinema, asking her to have a town hall and explain her opposition to forgoing the filibuster in order to codify the right to abortion. Later that month, Gallego’s campaign fundraised on Facebook, teasing a potential primary challenge against Sinema in 2024.

“Many people are asking Ruben if he will run against Senator Kyrsten Sinema,” the post read. “We know many of you hope he does and he appreciates that fact. That’s one of the reasons he is asking you to contribute to his campaign today. Because if he is going to run against her, he’ll need to win his re-election campaign this November and build a strong grassroots movement.”

“Anything he doesn’t spend in 2022, he can use in 2024 … whatever he decides,” the post finished.

In September, less than two months before Election Day, Gallego alleged that Sinema “would prefer the Dems lose control of the Senate and House.” This, in response to Sinema predicting that, since government control periodically switches, it’s “likely to change again in just a few weeks.”

Five days before the election, former President Barack Obama visited Phoenix to rally support for the state’s Democrats. Sinema was notably absent—not even to show support for Katie Hobbs, whose first foray in politics was volunteering for one of Sinema’s state legislative races.

If not for the effort of Gallego and other Democratic groups, Sinema’s passivity was almost self-fulfilling. Nearly one week after Election Day, two Arizona House races—split by just hundreds of votes—and the extremely consequential gubernatorial race featuring Kari Lake are all yet to be called.