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IF AT FIRST YOU DON’T SUCCEED — Day Four of the battle for the speakership is underway with another vote — the 12th — on the House floor. And after a protracted stalemate, KEVIN McCARTHY appears to be getting closer to the speakership, peeling off most of his detractors.

McCarthy flipped 14 votes: Reps. DAN BISHOP (R-N.C.), MICHAEL CLOUD (R-Texas), ANDREW CLYDE (R-Ga.), BYRON DONALDS (R-Fla.), PAUL GOSAR (R-Ariz.), MARY MILLER (R-Ill.), RALPH NORMAN (R-S.C.), SCOTT PERRY (R-Pa.), CHIP ROY (R-Texas) and VICTORIA SPARTZ (R-Ind.) and Reps.-elect JOSH BRECHEEN (R-Okla.), ANNA PAULINA LUNA (R-Fla.), ANDY OGLES (R-Tenn.) and KEITH SELF (R-Texas) all voted for him. Seven Republican dissenters still voted against McCarthy. But that’s major progress for the man already occupying the speaker’s suite. Norman and Perry were considered some of the hardest nuts to crack.

“We’re at a turning point,” Perry explained on Twitter. “The framework for an agreement is in place, so in a good-faith effort, I voted to restore the People’s House by voting for @gopleader McCarthy.”

The contours of the deal are becoming clearer, as McCarthy previewed on a conference call this morning. And the proof of McCarthy’s momentum could reassure restive moderates and establishment types who might otherwise have started to agitate for an alternative.

McCarthy is on the brink of the speakership, but he isn’t quite there yet, even after giving away the farm to win over his opponents. The big outstanding questions:

— How big is the truly Never Kevin contingent? Several of McCarthy’s loudest detractors continued to vote against him this afternoon, and some of their votes may be impossible for him to land. Five GOP holdouts are enough to deny him the gavel, depending on absences, meaning he has to convince some combination of these seven lawmakers to vote for him or vote present: Reps. ANDY BIGGS (R-Ariz.), LAUREN BOEBERT (R-Colo.), MATT GAETZ (R-Fla.), BOB GOOD (R-Va.), ANDY HARRIS (R-Md.), and MATT ROSENDALE (R-Mont.), plus Rep.-elect ELI CRANE (R-Ariz.).

— Could his concessions scare off others? The deal might include an agreement not to increase defense spending from 2022 levels, as Bloomberg reports — a risky move if McCarthy doesn’t want to lose support elsewhere. Senior appropriators and defense hawks would have to swallow pretty hard to accept a $75 billion Pentagon spending cut.

— How does the math change? For the 434 members of the House, life is continuing to intervene — and alter McCarthy’s calculus. Rep.-elect WESLEY HUNT (R-Texas), who’s voted for McCarthy, is returning home after his wife, who just gave birth, went back to the hospital with non-life-threatening complications. But Rep. KEN BUCK (R-Colo.), another McCarthy backer, is expected to get back to D.C. today. Rep. DAVID TRONE (D-Md.) is out today for surgery.

— And, of course, how will he possibly lead? The rules changes he had to concede to get here will make presiding over the conference and the chamber very difficult, with the one-person motion to vacate threatening his tenure at every moment.

Interesting spotted: Earlier this morning, Yahoo’s Jon Ward saw McCarthy opponents meeting at the offices of MARK MEADOWS and JIM DeMINT’s Conservative Partnership Institute, where the House Freedom Caucus typically gathers.

Related reads …

— Cash dash: WSJ’s Julie Bykowicz has a smart piece on why leadership has less leverage over the holdouts: The fundraising landscape has changed such that about half of the dissenters can rely on lots of small, online donations, reducing the sway of big donors allied with McCarthy. “Those streams of $5 and $10 donations can turn into a flood when a lawmaker stakes out a contrarian position and stokes political drama.” Threats from a PAC start to have duller teeth, and external power brokers matter less.

— What a day: “Fourth day of speaker crisis collides with Jan. 6 anniversary,”by Kyle Cheney, Nick Wu and Olivia Beavers: “Two years to the day after the Jan. 6 insurrection, the House is mired in a different breed of crisis over the speakership — one with a direct line back to the violent riot that appeared blurrier than ever on Friday.”

— The back story: At a forum in November attended by Biggs, Gaetz and Spartz, activists called for a Congress that functions more like a European-style set of coalitions — in which the Freedom Caucus is almost distinct from the GOP, Grid’s Steve Reilly and Maggie Severns report. That game plan called for the far-right group to demand committee placements and chairmanships, to have the Freedom Caucus “essentially co-govern the lower chamber of the legislative branch.” And it looks a lot like the concessions the McCarthy holdouts are demanding now.

Happy Friday afternoon, and thanks for reading Playbook PM. Can the momentum carry McCarthy to the speakership today? Drop me a line at [email protected].

THE ECONOMY

JOBS REPORT — What recession?The U.S. added 223,000 jobs last month, the slowest pace of new hiring in two years but still a fairly solid clip that beat expectations. The numbers show a resilient economy in the face of the Fed’s higher interest rates, per new Labor Department out today. The unemployment rate ticked down to 3.5%, tied for the lowest in 53 years. In the numbers, there were “other signs that the job market has begun to cool,” AP’s Christopher Rugaber reports, including wage growth slowing to 4.6% year over year. That one will be welcome news to the central bank, which has seen wages as one of the key contributors to stubborn inflation.

But, but, but: Even if the U.S. manages to achieve the fabled “soft landing,” bringing down prices without tanking the economy, “it will be smoother for some households and businesses and rockier for others,” cautions NYT’s Talmon Joseph Smith. Small businesses and workers without savings could especially struggle.

ALL POLITICS

BATTLE FOR THE SENATE — Marine veteran LUCAS KUNCE, who lost a Democratic primary for Missouri Senate this year, is jumping back into the 2024 race to take on GOP Sen. JOSH HAWLEY, he told Holly Otterbein in an exclusive interview this morning. Kunce is staking out a populist lane — and it’s no accident he’s launching the campaign today, as he wants to highlight Hawley’s Jan. 6 role. Though he’ll face an uphill battle in the Show Me State, Kunce is bringing on veterans of several high-profile 2022 campaigns, including the Win Company and Middle Seat Consulting. CALEB CAVARRETTA is his campaign manager, along with top staffers CONNOR LOUNSBURY, TYLER TRAN, DAN SORENSON and JENN LIU.

— Former Rep. CANDICE MILLER (R-Mich.) will not run for the seat being vacated by Sen. DEBBIE STABENOW (D-Mich.),per The Detroit News’ Melissa Nann Burke.

BATTLE FOR THE HOUSE — Speaking of notably timed announcements … DERRICK EVANS, a former West Virginia state delegate who spent months behind bars for his Jan. 6 participation, said today he’ll primary Rep. CAROL MILLER (R-W.Va.). More from WOWK-TV

MIDTERM AUTOPSY — “In the End, Redistricting Didn’t Hurt (And May Have Even Helped) House Democrats,”by The Cook Political Report’s Dave Wasserman: “Republicans wouldn’t have won the House without gerrymanders in Florida, Georgia, Tennessee and Texas. But overall, Democrats fared slightly better than they would have under old maps thanks to their own gerrymanders in Illinois, Nevada, New Mexico and Oregon and a temporary court-drawn map in North Carolina.”

RED-LIGHT REDISTRICT — Federal judges in South Carolina today struck down the state’s 1st Congressional District as illegally racially gerrymandered, ruling that it has to be redrawn in the next few months not to discriminate against Black voters. This is the seat that GOP Rep. NANCY MACE narrowly flipped in 2020 and then won by a comfortable margin last year after redistricting. More from The Post and Courier

HISTORY LESSON — “‘Corrupt, Out of Control and Dangerous’: The Bitter House Race That Poisoned American Elections,” by Michael Kruse: “The 1984 race for Indiana’s ‘Bloody 8th’ trained a generation of politicians in the scorched-earth tactics of recounts. Its legacy lives on in Trump’s ‘stop the steal’ rhetoric.”

JAN. 6 AND ITS AFTERMATH

THE INVESTIGATIONS — Michigan AG DANA NESSEL said her office is reopening its probe into the plan for fake “alternate electors” for Trump in the 2020 election, The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger reports. She said there’s “clear evidence to support charges” against them based on the recent release of documents from the House Jan. 6 committee.

WHERE THE PROSECUTIONS STAND — Two years after the insurrection and after close to 1,000 arrests, many more charges could still be yet to come in the sprawling investigation into Jan. 6, NYT’s Alan Feuer reports. Perhaps hundreds more people could be arrested in the coming months. And despite the taxing strain on the Justice Department, “over and over, the judges who have overseen criminal cases in Federal District Court in Washington have asserted that the exertions have been worth it.”

— WaPo’s Tom Jackman and Spencer Hsu reportthat judges are handing out stern verbal reprimands in sentencing — but most of the time giving defendants less time behind bars than prosecutors wanted.

ALTERNATIVE FACTS — Far-right supporters of the Jan. 6 defendants have persisted in their belief that those charged are political prisoners, having “formed prayer chains, instigated letter writing campaigns, organized vigils and raised millions for their legal defense,” WaPo’s Annie Gowen reports. That includes $3.7 million just through the crowdfunded GiveSendGo, plus additional millions through other groups. One defendant, accused of beating cops with a baseball bat, “has his own personal assistant to manage his interview requests and podcast schedule — from jail.”

POLICY CORNER

IMMIGRATION FILES — DHS Secretary ALEJANDRO MAYORKAS is about to face an onslaught from House Republicans — but House Democrats are giving him an earful too. Hispanic lawmakers hammered Mayorkas from the left over the Biden administration’s new moves to stem the flow of migrants through greater use of Title 42, Axios’ Stef Kight and Hans Nichols report. “Comparisons to the Trump administration — and specifically STEPHEN MILLER policies — were raised.” Sen. BOB MENENDEZ (D-N.J.) was especially vehement.

CLEARING THE AIR — The EPA today rolled out proposed new limits on soot from factories and cars that pollutes the air, reversing course from a Trump administration decision, per WSJ’s Eric Niiler. The agency estimates that the changes will save 4,200 lives a year — but cost industry hundreds of millions of dollars. The final rule, which would be a victory for environmental and health advocates, would come next year.

VALLEY TALK

TIKTOK ON THE CLOCK — “TikTok freezes hiring for U.S. security deal as opposition mounts,”by Reuters’ Echo Wang: “TikTok has stopped a hiring process for consultants that would help it implement a potential security agreement with the United States … as opposition to such a deal among U.S. officials grows.”

CONGRESS

STOCK AND TRADE — FormerSen. RICHARD BURR (R-N.C.) said this morning that the SEC has wrapped up its investigation into his stock trades without taking any actions against him. More from WNCN-TV

AMERICA AND THE WORLD

WAR REPORT — “Military Investigation Reveals How the U.S. Botched a Drone Strike in Kabul,”by NYT’s Azmat Khan: “[P]ortions of a U.S. Central Command investigation obtained by The New York Times show that military analysts reported within minutes of the strike that civilians may have been killed, and within three hours had assessed that at least three children were killed. The documents also provide detailed examples of how assumptions and biases led to the deadly blunder.”

PLAYBOOKERS

MEDIA MOVES —  Axios has added David Lindsey as managing editor of politics and Eugene Scott as senior politics reporter. Lindsey was previously executive editor for text at National Geographic. Scott was previously a national political reporter at WaPo. Full announcement

TRANSITIONS —Reggie Babin is now senior counsel in Akin Gump’s public law and policy practice. He previously was chief counsel for Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer. … John Rizzo is now SVP of public affairs at Clyde Group. He previously was senior spokesperson at Treasury, and is a Chuck Schumer and Bob Casey alum. … Will O’Grady is now press secretary for Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.). He most recently was deputy press secretary for the RNC. …

… Rep.-elect Brandon Williams’ (R-N.Y.) office has added Sarah Selip as comms director and Ryan Sweeney as legislative director. Selip previously was comms director for Rep. Jody Hice (R-Ga.). Sweeney previously was a legislative assistant for Rep. Chris Jacobs (R-N.Y.). … Tiffany Boguslawski is now director of operations and press secretary for Rep.-elect Max Miller (R-Ohio). She most recently was scheduler for Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.), and is a Trump White House alum. … Debra Stahl Streusand is now director of the Portfolio Management Office for End User Services at the VA. She most recently was director of service improvement and risk management there.

WEEKEND WEDDING — Elizabeth Heaton, a Bush 43 alum who runs her own comms consulting firm called EAH Strategies, and Bryan Posthumus, Michigan state representative and Republican floor leader, got married on New Year’s Eve in the Wine Cellar at Noto’s in Grand Rapids, Mich. They’re childhood friends who reconnected when she offered comms advice to him during his first run for office. His sister, Lisa Posthumus Lyons, officiated, and attendees included his father, Dick, former lieutenant governor of Michigan. Pic… Another pic, via Hetler Photography LLC