By LISA MASCARO and KEVIN FREKING Associated Press
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WASHINGTON — The House Republican majority is stuck, one week after the ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, with lawmakers unable to coalesce around a new leader in a stalemate that threatens to keep Congress partly shuttered indefinitely.

On Tuesday evening, two leading contenders for the gavel, Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan, were addressing colleagues behind closed doors at a candidate forum. But they appeared to be splitting the vote.

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McCarthy, meanwhile, was openly ready to reclaim the gavel he just lost, but was seen by many as a longshot option unlikely to win back the handful of hardliners who just ousted him.

“We’re going to get the House back to work,” Scalise said Tuesday ahead of the meeting.

House Republicans took the majority aspiring to operate as a team, and run government more like a business, but have drifted far from that goal. Just 10 months in power, the historic ouster of their House speaker — a first in the U.S. — and the prolonged infighting it has unleashed are undercutting the Republicans’ ability to govern at a time of crisis at home and abroad.

Now, as House Republicans push ahead toward snap elections Wednesday aimed at finding a new nominee for speaker, the hard-right coalition of lawmakers that ousted McCarthy has shown what an oversized role a few lawmakers can have in choosing the successor.

“This is a hard conference to lead,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “A lot of free agents.”

Both Scalise and Jordan are working furiously to shore up support. Both are easily winning over dozens of supporters and could win the majority of Republicans, about 110 votes.

But it’s unclear if either Scalise or Jordan can amass the 217 votes eventually needed in a floor vote to overcome opposition from Democrats. A vote could come as soon as Wednesday.

Many Republicans want to prevent the spectacle of a messy House floor fight like the grueling January brawl when McCarthy became speaker.

“We’re in a similar situation that we were back in January,” said Doug Heye, a former Republican leadership aide, adding the political optics of the feud look “terrible” to American voters.