Far-right Ohio Republican Jim Jordan eked out a victory Friday in the GOP’s internal nomination for House Speaker, setting up what will likely be a difficult road ahead for the staunch Trump ally and founder of the legislative bomb-throwing House Freedom Caucus.
The vote came a day after Louisiana Representative Steve Scalise, who beat Jordan by 113 to 99 on Wednesday, withdrew from the race for House Speaker when it became clear that holdouts would prevent him from garnering the necessary 217 votes. Jordan’s tally Friday was only slightly better: the GOP caucus was split 124 to 81 in a secret ballot between Jordan and moderate Georgia Representative Austin Scott, who threw his hat in the race at the last minute.
A second secret ballot, held to gauge the number of Republicans who would support Jordan in a House vote, nudged Jordan’s tally up to 152-55. Jordan can afford just four defections if he wants to secure the top House job, a tall order for a controversial politician who just a few years ago was firmly on the furthest right flank of the GOP caucus. “There’s no one, not a person in our conference, not a person in America that can get 217 votes out of this group,” said Arkansas Representative Steve Womack in his regular “Comment from the Capitol.”
The turmoil threatens to keep the House from returning to business and taking any significant action on important international and domestic issues, including the unfolding Israel-Hamas war and a looming government shutdown.
And there’s practically no chance that Jordan will get any help in a floor vote from Democrats; about a dozen House representatives gathered outside the Capitol after Jordan’s nomination Friday to denounce the pick. Standing on the Capitol steps, House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries called Jordan the “chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire.”
Democrats’ comments Friday offer a preview of how the party would spin a Jordan speakership during the 2024 campaign season. “Every Republican who casts their vote for him is siding with an insurrectionist against our democracy,” Representative Katherine Clark of Massachusetts, the Democratic whip, said at the Capitol.
Clark’s comments referenced Jordan’s well-documented role in aiding Trump’s attempt to overturn the 2020 presidential election and his defense of the former president after Jan. 6, 2021. (Trump rewarded Jordan with the Presidential Medal of Freedom just five days after the insurrection.)
Some have argued that Jordan’s close proximity to Trump, far from a liability in the speaker race, might force the hand of wavering House members worried about alienating the party’s pro-Trump base. “The difference between McCarthy’s election in January on the floor and this election is that it was popular to vote against McCarthy with the base in January. It is popular to vote for Jim Jordan with the base,” Kentucky Representative Thomas Massie told The New York Times. “Jim Jordan has some work to do. But he’s got several days to do that, to bring people on board, to talk with them about their concerns.”
