House Republicans reshaped their leadership team Thursday, promoting Rep. Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) to majority leader, following the surprise primary defeat of Rep. Eric Cantor Eric CantorTrump's olive branch differs from the golden eras of bipartisanship After divisive rally, Trump calls for unity Ex-RNC spokesman: After Trump remarks how can I tell minorities to vote GOP MORE (Va.). 
 
 The party picked conservative Rep. Steve Scalise (La.) to replace McCarthy as majority whip and complete the shakeup resulting from Cantor’s defeat. 
 
 ADVERTISEMENT 
 
 McCarthy, 49, defeated conservative Rep. Raúl Labrador (Idaho) to become the second-ranking House Republican behind Speaker John Boehner (Ohio). 
 
 Less than an hour later, Scalise defeated two other candidates, Reps. Peter Roskam (Ill.) and Marlin Stutzman (Ind.), on the first ballot to become chief vote-counter despite rampant speculation it might take two ballots to decide the contest. 
 
 Republican aides announced the winners of the elections but not the vote tallies, which are kept secret. 
 
 The victory will make McCarthy, an easy-going former deli owner, the potential heir apparent to Boehner, marking a rapid rise for a Republican first elected to the House in 2006. 
 
 At a press conference after the votes, McCarthy said he would make one promise: “I will work every single day to make sure this conference has the courage to lead and the wisdom to listen. And we’ll turn this country around.” 
 
 Labrador, an outspoken sophomore lawmaker who only jumped into the race against McCarthy after other conservatives declined to run, argued that House Republicans should not respond to Cantor’s surprise primary loss by maintaining the status quo. Since 2011, McCarthy has served as majority whip, the No. 3 leadership post in the House. 
 
 Labrador threw his votes to McCarthy in a gesture of unity after the vote was announced, Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) told reporters. He said Roskam did the same thing after the whip's race, on behalf of himself and Stutzman. 
 
 A solid fundraiser with strong relationships throughout the Republican conference, McCarthy had long prepared to succeed Cantor as majority leader whenever Boehner retired. But to the surprise of virtually everyone inside the Capitol, it was Cantor who left first, carried out of office by conservative voters in his own Richmond-area district. 
 
 When Cantor went down last week, McCarthy was ready. 
 
 While conservatives struggled to rally around a single challenger, he quickly consolidated support and pushed Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas), the ambitious former GOP campaign chief, out of the race. 
 
 Labrador launched his bid Friday, but with so many Republicans already committed to McCarthy, the question became not whether he would win but how many votes he could secure. 
 
 House Republicans do not announce the vote tallies of their leadership elections, so only a few people in the leadership know how close the election was. Labrador won public support from just a handful of members who have long opposed Boehner and his leadership team. 
 
 Scalise also made an aggressive play for the whip’s post soon after Cantor’s defeat became official. 
 
 First elected to the House in 2008, he used his chairmanship of the conservative Republican Study Committee (RSC) as a springboard to the party leadership. In challenging Roskam, who was McCarthy’s chief deputy, Scalise premised his candidacy on the desire of conservatives to install a Republican from a red state within a leadership team dominated by members from states that President Obama carried in the last two presidential elections. 
 
 Yet his coalition extended far beyond the south and included support from the conference’s highest-ranking woman, Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.), Rep. Fred Upton (Mich.), chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, and Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), a leadership ally. 
 
 Speaking to reporters afterward, Scalise pledged “a more united team” in the House and attributed his victory to a broad coalition. 
 
 “We built a strong team that was representative of the entire conference,” Scalise said. 
 
 Roskam, a mild-mannered fourth-term successor to Rep. Henry Hyde (R) representing suburban Chicago, struggled to overcome questions about his conservative bona fides and close ties to the party establishment. While he had been preparing for the race for years, he suffered from the conference’s desire to alter the status quo after Cantor’s loss and particularly after it became clear McCarthy had the votes to replace him. 
 
 After his loss, Roskam congratulated Scalise on running “a great campaign,” but he was mum on the question of whether he’d run again in the leadership elections this fall. 
 
 “Today is the day to celebrate Steve Scalise and his victory,” Roskam said. “Let’s focus on Steve, and I am committed to helping him succeed.” 
 
 Stutzman was the late entrant and wild card in the race. He drew support from ardent conservatives wary of Scalise’s ties to the leadership and his work with Democrats on a flood insurance deal that many on the right opposed as fiscally irresponsible. 
 
 Just 37 and in his second term, Stutzman said afterward he didn’t know yet if he would seek to replace Scalise as head of the RSC. But he also didn’t deny that his long-shot bid for whip was a way to position himself for future races. 
 
 “I’m going to get some sleep, and take a couple of days and we’ll look and see where’s the best place that we can help,” he said. 
 
 “I really enjoyed talking with all the members, and I have a better understanding of where our conference is at,” Stutzman added. 
 
 Scalise was seen as the leadership’s choice to lead the RSC after 2012, and he argued while wooing members that he would both bring a conservative voice to the top ranks and could bring conservatives votes along for leadership proposals. 
 
 Along with Cantor and Rep. Paul Ryan (Wis.), McCarthy is an original “Young Gun” who helped lead Republicans back into the House majority during the wave election of 2010. He personally recruited dozens of members of that historic class, forging bonds that helped him fend off potential challengers in the past week. 
 
 Known for his frequent references to “Fight Club” and for showing clips from movies like “The Town” to boost morale, McCarthy has come under criticism for his inability to deliver at crucial times for the leadership. House Republicans have failed to garner enough party support to pass several major bills during his tenure, leading to whispers that his laid-back personality was not well suited to the job of whip. 
 
 In swapping the buttoned-up Cantor for the sunnier McCarthy, lawmakers say the major change will not be policy but personality. 
 
 “McCarthy’s more affable,” Rep. Richard Hudson (R-N.C.) said on Wednesday. “He takes his coat off for every meeting. He rolls up his sleeves. He’s not worried about being formal and having to look polished. I think he just is who he is.” 
 
 McCarthy and Scalise will assume their new posts when Cantor steps aside on July 31. 
 
 Updated at 6:05 p.m. 
 
 Peter Schroeder, Cristina Marcos and Bernie Becker contributed. ||||| It happens once a week, almost like clockwork. 
 
 Kevin McCarthy, the man House Republicans are on course to tap this week as their next majority leader, steps to the microphones with other GOP leaders, opens his eyes wide and says something baffling. 
 
 Dana Milbank writes about political theater in the nation’s capital. He joined the Post as a political reporter in 2000. View Archive 
 
 On justice being blind: “One of the most important I think that can happen today, Lynn Jenkins’s bill, an idea of fairness, the idea that when you look across the street from the Capitol, you see the Supreme Court, you see the statue sitting there, blinded in the process with the weights in- between.” 
 
 On HealthCare.gov: “He only totes the 8 million. But the insurers are saying many of that is duplicate, that people inside the Web site that we all know did not — wasn’t successful. . . . How many have paid the premiums? How many will continue? How many are duplicates? How can we fall as we go forward?” 
 
 On his home state of California: “We are suffering through one of the worst droughts in a century. It’s even worse based upon the regulations that we have. . . . Unfortunately, like many of our bills, we sent it to the Senate, the Senate refused to act on it, let no one act on what is their policy for a drought in California? This has gone beyond the point.” 
 
 When Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) was 19, he won $5,000 in the California lottery. Here are three other facts you probably didn't know about the frontrunner for House majority leader. (Pamela Kirkland/The Washington Post) 
 
 On a charter-school bill: “This is a great strength of a change making an equalizer inside for economy throughout.” 
 
 Watching McCarthy at these weekly stakeouts (he has been majority whip the past three years) can be a nail-biting event. It’s surprising, because he is a native English speaker and he speaks fluently in private or in small groups. But put him in front of a crowd and his words come out as if they have been translated by Google from a foreign language. 
 
 This is not a peripheral matter, because McCarthy will become much more of a spokesman for the party if he replaces Eric Cantor. This would also put him first in line to be the spokesman for congressional Republicans — speaker of the House — once John Boehner leaves the post. It’s certainly not disqualifying (our 43rd president frequently waged battles with the English language), but McCarthy’s struggle might give colleagues pause because it occurs when he is working from notes or making a prepared statement. What will happen when he takes questions as majority leader, which he seldom does now? 
 
 McCarthy is good-looking and well-liked by colleagues (he screens movies for them), and no dummy could have advanced so far since his election in 2006. But he has had some high-profile failures as the party’s top vote counter (on a couple of occasions, leaders lost or had to cancel votes they expected to win), and one of his high-profile launches, a Web site inviting public feedback, was widely ridiculed and then abandoned. At the launch, McCarthy said he used “a Microsoft program that helped NASA map the moon.” 
 
 McCarthy has traveled far, apparently, to come up with some of his weekly pronouncements. Here are a few, transcribed by Federal News Service, which occasionally inserts words in parentheses that the stenographers think McCarthy might have been trying to say. 
 
 On a Congressional Budget Office study of Obamacare: “Then yesterday, based upon that study, what does he do? Delays business, loses trust. And where’s the fairness? Business is picked over individuals. America — we’re a collective of individuals. We (come strength ?) bound together.” 
 
 On regulations: “We’re in the fourth year of a recovery — a recovery of this administration that put in more than 2,600 new regulations in its fourth year, more than 60 that were major rulings, compounded on growth.” 
 
 On jobs: “I went out in my district and asked to tell the stories. I got it clear across the district, from all different aspects. . . . The Labor Department statistic for low-wage worker, December 2013, was the shortest amount of workweek they’ve ever had.” 
 
 On an energy bill: “There is a theme that goes through it — the concept of representing the individual, the fairness of this country that it’s based upon, looking out for those individuals from the home heating costs that are being doubled and regulation that holds it back. If you look at Shuster’s bill, it allows propane to be able to move — (inaudible) — to be able to work.” 
 
 On last year’s government shutdown: “As the speaker laid out, senior White House administration says it doesn’t matter how long we’re shut down.” 
 
 Republicans had better hope McCarthy masters speaking before becoming speaker. 
 
 Twitter: @Milbank 
 
 Read more from Dana Milbank’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook.
– Eric Cantor's defeat may have been a complete surprise, but this isn't: House Republicans have chosen Kevin McCarthy of California to be the new majority leader, reports the Hill. The 49-year-old takes over those duties on July 31. First elected to the House eight years ago, McCarthy is one of the so-called "Young Guns" behind his party's resurgence in recent years, notes the Contra Costa Times. He is known for his frequent references to the movie Fight Club to boost GOP morale, but Dana Milbank at the Washington Post writes that he has a trait far less endearing to Republicans: He often says "baffling" things in front of the cameras. And not baffling in a political sense. Just plain baffling in general. Milbank ticks off scores of examples: "One of the most important I think that can happen today, Lynn Jenkins’s bill, an idea of fairness, the idea that when you look across the street from the Capitol, you see the Supreme Court, you see the statue sitting there, blinded in the process with the weights in-between.” “This is a great strength of a change making an equalizer inside for economy throughout.” (That was about charter schools.) “We’re in the fourth year of a recovery—a recovery of this administration that put in more than 2,600 new regulations in its fourth year, more than 60 that were major rulings, compounded on growth.” It happens "almost like clockwork," writes Milbank, and the question is whether McCarthy can get things under control in his new higher-profile position, where public pronouncements will be plentiful.