Jim Jordan Is Failing to Unite the Rudderless GOP

For the second time in two days, Jim Jordan failed to win the House Speakership. With just 199 votes in his favor for House Speaker, the Ohio lawmaker fell short of the 217 threshold needed to win the gavel on Wednesday afternoon. Despite the best efforts of Jordan and his allies to win over Republicans reluctant to back the MAGA hard-liner, the hopeful Speaker bled GOP support relative to a day prior. Ultimately, a total of 22 Republicans voted against Jordan in the second round of voting, leaving his Speakership bid on its last legs.

After Jordan failed to hit the needed threshold in the second round of votes, his camp dug its heels in. “We’re going to keep going,” Russell Dye, Jordan’s spokesperson, said Wednesday. “We’ll continue to talk and listen to our colleagues,” Jordan said, indicating he’d push for a third round of votes, which could begin by noon Thursday. But even as Jordan insisted he wasn’t leaving the fight, his antagonists—and even some allies—were mapping out alternative paths to a semblance of governance.

In addition to floating Jordan alternatives, a cross section of Republicans have begun a push to empower Patrick McHenry in his role as Speaker pro tempore, the idea being at least the House could do business while the Republicans tried to clean up its mess. “After two weeks without a Speaker of the House and no clear candidate with 217 votes in the Republican conference, it is time to look at other viable options,” Ohio’s Dave Joyce, who has considered introducing a resolution to expand McHenry’s limited powers, told NBC News. (Another Republican, Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania, has already introduced a similar resolution.)

But even as a growing number of Republicans threw their weight behind the McHenry resolution, others were wary. “This place was designed to have an elected Speaker by means of the roll call of the members, not some resolution because we’ve hit a snag,” Byron Donalds told Vanity Fair Wednesday. “I do think that the original framing of how the Speaker was chosen is important. And we have to maintain that.”

Other GOP lawmakers have resorted to recriminations. “Listen, I had subscribed to the belief that we shouldn’t have left the conference until we knew that someone had gotten to 217 and I helped craft the rule that would have enabled us to do that. That was not ultimately the choice and that’s fine. That’s the way it goes,” Marc Molinaro told reporters Wednesday afternoon. “But at this point, again, because of that very reason we are back behind closed doors for conversation. I think that does embolden the need to empower the Speaker pro tempore to allow us to get back to work.” 

McHenry, for his part, isn’t entertaining the notion. “I want to elect Jim Jordan as Speaker and that is what we are going to the floor to do,” he told reporters ahead of the second round of votes. When pressed again whether he would support a resolution to expand his powers as Speaker pro tempore, McHenry was dismissive. “I am voting for Jim Jordan,” he said.

Democrats, meanwhile, have demonstrated unity, with all 212 members again voting for Hakeem Jeffries, who told CNN’s Manu Raju on Wednesday that his caucus had not yet decided on whether it would back a resolution to empower McHenry, as its first priority was stopping Jordan. “Our role is to protect a clear and present danger to our democracy and the poster child for MAGA extremism from becoming the Speaker,” he said.

Jordan, a cofounder of the far-right House Freedom Caucus and a frequent Fox News guest, has proven to be a top attack dog for Donald Trump, who endorsed his candidacy. Jordan amplified Trump’s election-fraud lies and voted against certifying the 2020 election results, while more recently spearheading a push to impeach Joe Biden over unfounded claims of corruption. It’s Jordan’s brazen MAGA bona fides, in other words, that account for his rise within the Republican ranks.

Jordan’s struggle marks the latest hiccup in a bloody leadership fight that has gripped the House Republican caucus since the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy earlier this month. Jordan’s failure, which was expected ahead of the second round of voting Wednesday, is no doubt a boon for Scalise and McCarthy allies; Jordan was far from their top choice to succeed McCarthy and clinched the nomination by the skin of his teeth. Last week, after a last-minute challenge from Austin Scott, Jordan secured his party’s nomination in a vote of 124 to 81—a far cry from the 217 he needed. And in a second vote to determine who would support Jordan in a floor vote, 55 Republicans said they would still oppose the Ohio lawmaker.

Despite this less-than-ideal-math, Jordan projected confidence after his nomination. “I’ve been working it for 10 days. We’ll keep up,” he told reporters Friday, adding: “I think we’re going to get 217.” Jordan also mounted a comprehensive pressure campaign with the help of allies—like Trump and even Fox News’ Sean Hannity.

But it quickly became clear this week that the arm-twisting backfired with a handful of holdouts. It seems that, ultimately, Jordan’s politics might be too unpalatable even to his own party—despite his celebrity within the conservative media ecosystem. Now, all eyes are on McHenry—a reluctant Speaker, not unlike Paul Ryan. Whether House Republicans can coalesce around him remains to be seen as the caucus appears more divided than ever.

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