The House voted to adjourn and delay the next round of votes for House speaker after Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) failed to win the support needed after the 11th round of voting.

The vote to recess until noon Friday – to allow more time for McCarthy to negotiate with the 20 members of his party standing between him and the speaker’s gavel – follows a highly contentious adjournment vote Wednesday night.

Despite major concessions, talks with the conservative hard-liners didn’t result in a deal that could get McCarthy to 218 votes, but, in a promising sign for McCarthy, his allies appear to have made progress Thursday evening on an agreement with detractors.

Democrats have been whipping against adjourning, and the vote Wednesday night to push the next vote until Thursday nearly failed when four of the rebel GOP lawmakers joined with them. None of those McCarthy holdouts voted against adjournment on Thursday, with the vote passing, 219-213.

Though McCarthy has made numerous concessions to the group, including allowing one member to force a vote to oust a sitting speaker, placing more conservative hard-liners on the House Rules Committee, promising votes on key bills, and not spending in safe Republican primaries, a few of the detractors, who include Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Lauren Boebert (R-CO), remain unswayed.

Another group that includes Reps. Chip Roy (R-TX) and Dan Bishop (R-NC) say they could be convinced if more of their demands are met.

Most of the group voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL) as an alternative to McCarthy, but in the 10th round, more holdout votes shifted to Rep. Kevin Hern (R-OK), chairman of the Republican Study Committee.

During the contentious deliberation, Gaetz called McCarthy a “squatter” for occupying the speaker’s office without having won the position, prompting cheers from Democrats as the House began the 11th ballot to elect a speaker.

Gaetz referred to a letter first reported by the Washington Examiner he sent to the Architect of the Capitol asking that McCarthy stop operating out of the office set aside for the speaker of the House. Gaetz is one of McCarthy’s staunchest foes as the California Republican tries to cut a deal with the 20 members of his party keeping him from the gavel.

“We also have to restore to the speaker’s office an actual person who ought to be in the speaker’s office, not the squatter who is currently there,” he said. “And if the Architect of the Capitol is listening, I sent a letter because I would like to know what the basis is for letting someone occupy the speaker’s office who comes in second place 10 straight times. Is there, like, some basis in law or rule or precedent for that?”

Gaetz’s floor speech was to nominate former President Donald Trump for speaker despite Trump standing behind his endorsement of McCarthy. Gaetz had supported Hern on the previous ballot.

“I nominate President Trump because we must make our country great again. He can start by making the House of Representatives great again,” the congressman concluded.

This is the first time since 1923 that electing the speaker has taken more than one ballot.