The stalemate over choosing a House speaker continued on Thursday, after the Republican leader Kevin McCarthy failed to win the gavel for an eighth time.

McCarthy won 201 votes on the eighth ballot, leaving him 17 votes short of the 218 needed for a victory. The results mirrored previous rounds of voting, reflecting the entrenched opposition that McCarthy is facing within the House Republican conference.

The Thursday votes included a couple of surprises. Far-right congressman Matt Gaetz, a Republican of Florida, twice cast a ballot for Donald Trump. As the US constitution does not specify that the House speaker must be a member of the chamber, lawmakers are not required to support one of their colleagues. Trump received no other votes.

Another two of McCarthy’s detractors, congresswoman Lauren Boebert of Colorado and congressman Josh Brecheen of Oklahoma, threw their support behind congressman Kevin Hern of Oklahoma. Hern, the chair of the Republican study committee, said that the possibility of becoming speaker was “something I’ll have to think and pray about before deciding if it’s a job I’ll run for”.

Before Thursday’s proceedings, the House deadlocked over the speakership three times on Wednesday, following the three inconclusive votes held a day earlier. Rather than voting a fourth time that day, members moved to adjourn for a few hours on Wednesday evening, giving McCarthy’s team more time to negotiate with his Republican detractors.

The evening, too, failed to produce a solution, so the chamber reconvened only to adjourn again until the following afternoon. This is the first time in a century that the House has not chosen a speaker on the first ballot.

In a glimmer of hope for McCarthy’s prospects, most of the holdout Republicans supported his move to adjourn until Thursday at noon. The final vote on the measure was 216-214, as Democrats and a few Republicans tried and failed to keep the chamber in session.

Freshman congressman John James, a Republican of Michigan, celebrated the successful motion to adjourn as a “small victory” when he renominated McCarthy on Thursday. But the House Democratic caucus chair, Pete Aguilar, mocked James’s boast as a telling sign of Republican dysfunction.

“There is no victory in adjourning without doing the business of the people,” Aguilar said as he renominated the Democratic leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

The third day of voting came amid reports that McCarthy has made significant concessions to his roughly 20 detractors within the Republican conference. According to CNN, McCarthy has agreed to a chamber rule change allowing just one House member to call for a vote to remove the sitting speaker. McCarthy has also reportedly agreed to allow additional members of the hard-right House Freedom Caucus to serve on the influential rules committees, and he has promised votes on some of the detractors’ top legislative priorities.

In another major win for far-right House members, the McCarthy-aligned Pac Congressional Leadership Fund has reached an agreement with the organization Club for Growth to not invest in open-seat primaries in safe Republican districts. The two groups have previously clashed in primaries where the Club for Growth promoted candidates who were farther to the right than those endorsed by the CLF. The agreement could give hard-right candidates a better chance at a primary victory, clearing the way for them to join the House after winning relatively easy general elections.

“This agreement on Super [Pacs] fulfills a major concern we have pressed for,” said David McIntosh, president of Club for Growth. “Assuming these principles are met, Club for Growth will support Kevin McCarthy for speaker.”

But the concessions do not yet appear to have swayed McCarthy’s critics within the conference. Congressman Scott Perry, chair of the House Freedom Caucus and a leader of the anti-McCarthy coalition, expressed frustration that details of the concessions had leaked to the press. He voted against McCarthy for the seventh time on Thursday.

“A deal is NOT done. When confidences are betrayed and leaks are directed, it’s even more difficult to trust,” Perry said on Thursday afternoon. “I will not yield to the status quo.”

McCarthy can only afford to lose the support of four Republicans and still become speaker, assuming all 434 current members of the House cast ballots. If some of McCarthy’s detractors instead choose to vote “present”, the threshold for victory could be lower than 218.

McCarthy’s allies complained that the impasse is already affecting their constituents, as all House business has come to a halt until a speaker is selected.

“My office was informed by an agency today that they cannot communicate with my staff regarding active casework because we are not yet sworn in,” said congressman Don Bacon, a Republican of Nebraska. “The handful holding up the speaker election is not helping Americans but directly hurting them.”

In the face of Republican division, Democrats have remained united in backing their newly chosen leader. On each of the first six ballots, Jeffries won the support of all 212 members of the Democratic caucus, making him the top vote-getter in the speakership election so far.

Speaking at a press conference on Thursday, Jeffries implored Republicans to reach a consensus for the sake of the nation.

“It’s my hope that today, the House Republicans will stop the bickering, stop the backbiting and stop the backstabbing of each other so we can have the back of the American people,” Jeffries said. “We as Democrats are ready, willing and able to partner with them to find common ground whenever and wherever possible – not as Democrats, not as Republicans, as Americans. It’s time for Congress to get to work.”