The House was paralyzed further on Wednesday, as Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed again to win the speakership on a fifth ballot that saw his opposition deepen and left no clear path forward to end the stalemate.

“It looks messy”, said Congressman Mike Gallagher, a Republican of Wisconsin, in a speech nominating McCarthy for speaker on Wednesday, “but democracy is messy.”

On the second day of the 118th Congress, the Republican leader again fell far short of the 218 votes typically needed to win the gavel, marking the first time in a century that the House failed to choose a speaker on the first ballot. McCarthy earned just 201 votes, and all 212 Democrats voting for the minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Twenty conservatives opposed to McCarthy’s bid rallied behind Congressman Byron Donalds of Florida, while Congresswoman Victoria Spartz of Indiana, who had supported the Republican leader in previous rounds of balloting, voted “present”.

Explaining her vote, Spartz said Republicans should “stop wasting everyone’s time” and reconvene only when they have enough votes to elect a speaker.

Despite rounds of negotiations and a plea for unity from Donald Trump, McCarthy’s prospects appeared dimmer as he again braced for another defeat on the sixth ballot. In remarks nominating Donalds for speaker on the fifth vote, far-right conservative congresswoman Lauren Boebert suggested that Trump reverse course and tell McCarthy: “It’s time to withdraw.”

With no resolution in sight, Republicans held animated discussions on the chamber floor as Democrats looked on. All House business, including the swearing-in of new members, has come to a halt until the speakership is determined.

Joe Biden expressed dismay over the Republican standoff, telling reporters that the gridlock could damage America’s international reputation.

“I just think it’s a little embarrassing it’s taking so long,” Biden said before leaving for a trip to Kentucky the same day. “It’s not a good look, it’s not a good thing. This is the United States of America, and I hope they get their act together.”

Despite the significant hurdles he faces, McCarthy has voiced confidence that he will ultimately win the 218 votes needed to capture the gavel.

“I think we’ll find our way to get there,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday night. “This is a healthy debate. It might not happen on the day we want it, but it’s going to happen.”

In his floor speech, Gallagher acknowledged the chaos that has consumed the election so far and lamented the party’s narrow majority. Trying to put a positive spin on the situation, he celebrated the intraparty tension as the result of vigorous debate.

“The American people gave us an opportunity,” he said. “They’re asking us to do a job, and nobody has laid out a plan – a proactive policy agenda for the direction we want to take this country – in more detail than Kevin McCarthy.”

Before the chamber convened on Wednesday, Trump offered McCarthy his full-throated endorsement..

“VOTE FOR KEVIN, CLOSE THE DEAL, TAKE THE VICTORY,” Trump said in a post on the social media platform Truth Social, warning that a failure to do so would result in a “GIANT & EMBARRASSING DEFEAT”. But his declaration did little to change the minds of the conservatives dug in against McCarthy, some of whom are the former president’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill.

Other prominent Trump loyalists, including the Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Ohio congressman Jim Jordan among them, have joined the former president and rallied around McCarthy and called on their conservative colleagues to join them.

The continued chaos came after the first three votes held on Tuesday failed to produce a winner. Across those three ballots, the ranks of McCarthy’s Republican detractors only grew, reaching a total of 20 by the time the chamber adjourned on Tuesday evening.

After demanding a number of changes to chamber rules, one anti-McCarthy lawmaker suggested the leader’s handling of policy was to blame for his poor standing among certain conference members. Scott Perry, chair of the House Freedom Caucus, specifically cited the passage of the omnibus government funding bill last month, even though McCarthy fiercely opposed the legislation.

McCarthy “is falsely selling the media he’s conceded to us in the Rules – not ONE bit will do ANYTHING to stop what just happened in the massive $1.7tn, 4,000-page Taxpayer theft bill from 12 days ago”, Perry said on Twitter. “We’ll continue to seek a candidate who’ll put an end to this horrible practice.”

Underscoring the acrimony between the rival Republican camps, Gaetz sent a letter to the building caretakers on Tuesday night suggesting that McCarthy was improperly occupying the speaker’s lobby.

“What is the basis in law, House rule, or precedent to allow someone who has placed second in three successive speaker elections to occupy the Speaker of the House Office?” Gaetz wrote. “How long will he remain there before he is considered a squatter?”

One strategy under consideration is an attempt to win the speaker’s gavel with fewer than 218 votes, by persuading some holdout Republicans to vote present, thereby lowering the threshold to win a majority.

“You get 213 votes, and the others don’t say another name. That’s how you can win,” McCarthy told reporters on Tuesday night.

As the Republican conference devolved into chaos, House Democrats rallied around their new leader. Jeffries, who on Tuesday became the first Black American to helm either major party’s House caucus, said Republicans’ failure to elect a speaker was a “sad day” for the institution and democracy.

“This is a crisis of the Congress and it’s a crisis at the hands of the Republican dysfunction,” California congressman Pete Aguilar, the House Democratic Caucus chair, said at a Wednesday morning press conference. Aguilar said Democrats were united behind Jeffries, whom party members emphatically nominated as their choice for speaker.

Due to the conservative defections, Jeffries won the most votes overall on each of the first five ballots, but he fell short of the 218 needed to be elected speaker.

Yet many House Democrats reveled in the dysfunction. Several Democratic members tweeted out photos of themselves enjoying popcorn as the floor fight unfolded on Tuesday. Congressman Jimmy Gomez, a Democrat from California who brought his four-month-old to the Capitol for a swearing-in ceremony that has still not happened, tweeted a photo of his son: “Two bottle feeds and multiple diaper changes on the Democratic cloakroom floor. This speaker vote is taking forever!”