Kevin McCarthy (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, a Republican from California who was the heir apparent to the Speaker of the House, has abruptly pulled out of the race to replace John Boehner. Today was the day Republicans were expected to nominate him for the position, so his announcement comes as shock. Now that vote has been postponed as Republicans try to regroup.

“Over the last week it has become clear to me that our conference is deeply divided and needs to unite behind one leader,” McCarthy said in a prepared statement, according to the New York Times. “I have always put this conference ahead of myself. Therefore I am withdrawing my candidacy for speaker of the House. I look forward to working alongside my colleagues to help move our conference’s agenda and our country forward.”

McCarthy’s decision was baffling, though were some dark clouds on the horizon. Conservatives weren’t any happier with him than Boehner, and they were desperately seeking an alternative. He faced challenges from House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz of Utah and Rep. Daniel Webster of Florida. He was expected to defeat both today, but the formal election of the House Speaker on October 29 had the potential to get ugly. Yesterday Rep. Matt Salmon of Arizona told the Associated Press, “Most of us have recognized that what happens tomorrow is really not the fight. It’s about the floor.”

The Associated Press broke it down this way:

With Democrats sure to support one of their own, the GOP nominee will need 218 of the 247 House Republicans next month, a majority of the 435-member House. Conservatives say they’ll use that threshold to make demands in exchange for their support, perhaps promises to stop punishing Republicans who disobey leaders and to give rank-and-file lawmakers more power to pick committee chairs.

Conservatives didn’t like McCarthy for the some of the same reasons they didn’t like Boehner. They weren’t happy with Republican leadership that backed down in the fight against Planned Parenthood federal funding.

McCarthy also had a gaffe when he went on Hannity and suggested that the House Select Committee on Benghazi was political:

“Everybody thought Hillary Clinton was unbeatable, right? But we put together a Benghazi special committee, a select committee. What are her numbers today? Her numbers are dropping. Why? Because she’s untrustable. But no one would have known any of that had happened, had we not fought.”

He later backtracked but the comments gave Clinton campaign fodder.

Even given those troubles, Republicans said they were baffled. Rep. Ryan Costello of Pennsylvania told the Associated Press, “I have never seen anything like this.” Rep. Mick Mulvaney of South Carolina added, “We don’t know why he did it.”

The press didn’t see this curveball coming: