From an Inside the Times column by Blake Hounshell and Julie Hirschfeld Davis headlined “Why House Democrats Have Fallen in Line and Republicans Haven’t”:

In the expectations game that is American politics, losing is the new winning.

Republicans are putting their would-be House speaker, Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, through a grueling series of public tests, with his ultimate fate uncertain. So far, at least five Republicans have said they will oppose McCarthy’s bid when it comes up for a vote of the full House in January. He needs to win a majority.