Jordan builds momentum to Speakership but still faces opposition: Live coverage

House Republicans left a Monday evening GOP conference meeting making clear that while members have moved in Jordan’s favor since Friday, enough holdouts remain to deny him the Speakership on the first floor vote on Tuesday.

Jordan can only afford to lose four GOP votes and still reach 217 — the majority number needed to win on the floor, assuming all members are present and voting for a candidate. But more than that say they are against him.

• Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.): Bacon said he is “opposed” to Jordan, but not “never, never”
• Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.): Planning to vote for Scalise, who won the GOP Speaker nomination last week before withdrawing a day later.
• Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.): Voting for McCarthy
• Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.): Planning to vote for McCarthy
• Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.): Planning to vote for Scalise on at least the first ballot
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.): Said “I am a no” on Jordan “right now” but they are meeting tonight
• Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa): When asked if she knows how she wants to vote on Jordan’s nomination she responded “no ma’am, I think we still need conversations”

Still, Jordan signaled that the House will move forward with a vote on Tuesday, and projected confidence.

“Look, I felt good walking into the conference. I feel even better now. We’ve got a few more people we want to talk to, listen to. And then we’ll have a vote tomorrow,” Jordan said while leaving the meeting.

— Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell

Jordan said he felt more confident after Monday night’s GOP conference meeting than before.

“I felt good walking into the conference,” he said. “I feel even better now.”

“We got a few more people we want to talk to, listen to, and then we’ll have a vote tomorrow.”

Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) will vote on Tuesday for Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.) for Speaker.

“I’m gonna vote the way I voted the first time, the first election we had,” he said.

“Integrity is the most important thing that all of us have. There’s nothing more important than that. When I see what’s going on in that conference, and understand that we had an election, and we elected somebody, and because people in that conference didn’t agree with the election, ‘no, no, no, we’ve got a stop it all now, and we’ve got to have another election.’ The real man in the room is Steve Scalise,” he said.

Kelly also introduced a resolution that would empower Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) through Nov. 17 or the election of a Speaker, whichever comes first.

At least five Republicans say they do not plan to support Jordan on the first ballot Tuesday: Reps.  Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.), Don Bacon (R-Neb.), Ken Buck (R-Colo.), Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) and Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.).

Jordan picked up momentum on Tuesday, but if every member of the House votes on Tuesday, that opposition is enough to deny Jordan the gavel.

Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) says he does not plan to support Jordan “right now,” but will talk to him later tonight.

“We’re gonna meet and I am a no right now but I told him I would be open-minded to having that conversation,” Buck said.

One of the things Buck says he wants to bring up with Jordan is the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol.

“If he’s gonna lead this conference during a presidential election cycle, particularly a presidential election year with primaries and caucuses around the country, he’s gonna have to be strong and say Donald Trump didn’t win the election,” Buck said.

Buck is the fifth Republican to say they do not plan to vote for Jordan on Tuesday, enough to deny the Ohio Republican the gavel if every House member votes.

— Aris Folley and Mychael Schnell

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) said he won’t vote for Jordan for Speaker.

“In the first place, I am supporting a conservative Republican for Speaker who won the election when there’s to at least two folks,” he said. “Number two is, you know, I’m a really nice guy. I tried to get to yes, I will tell you, though, a little bit of advice if anybody’s trying to get my vote. The last thing you want to do is try to intimidate pressuring because then I close out entirely. So you know, that’s where I’m at.”

— Aris Folley

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said he would not vote for Jordan on the first ballot on Tuesday.

“We had a small group of folks who broke our rules and got rid of Kevin, and then a small group broke our rules and blocked Steve. Now they want us to follow the rules and support Jim and I don’t like that. I don’t play a game where the other guy can break the rules and win. As an American, I think we should stand up against that, but that’s what’s happened. We’ve had a minority of the majority dictate all of this, and it’s unacceptable. I’m gonna stand up and defend Kevin and Steve because this was wrong.”

Asked what the end game is, Bacon responded, “The end game is a small group of people need to say that some of us will not just be walked over on us and we’ve been walked over since January.”

He said Republicans “have candidates that can be a bigger consensus candidate.”

But he added that he is not a “never” on Jordan.

— Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.) said he would vote for Jordan for Speaker.

“I’ve had multiple conversations with Jim,” Molinaro said. “I’ve expressed my desire to have the issues that upstate New York cares about, fighting inflation, energy independence, commitment to fighting crime and securing our borders. And he’s assured me that members like me and the people I represent will have a voice at the table and he understands that we need to govern and for that I’ll be voting for him.”

Molinaro is a freshman moderate and represents a district that voted for President Biden in 2020.

— Mychael Schnell

Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) said he supports Jordan ahead of Tuesday’s expected floor vote.

“I support our Speaker-designate. I supported Scalise as our Speaker designee, and I now support Jim Jordan as our Speaker-designate,” McHenry told reporters in the Capitol.

He said the plan is to hold a noon floor vote on the Speakership, and “the goal” is for Jordan to get 217 votes on the floor.

Asked if he was surprised at Jordan’s detractors flipping Monday, McHenry responded “he wanted time for the weekend and hopefully it was productive.”

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.), a moderate who represents a district President Biden carried in 2020, said Monday he would vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker.

Lawler said he told Jordan he’s not a “hell no,” but that, “unless you have the votes, you know, I’m not going to be there.”

“I still have a fundamental problem with the fact that you have a handful of people who have refused to work with the rest of the conference. They unceremoniously removed the Speaker. They blocked Steve Scalise, and now they want everybody to fall in line. And they’re using every pressure tactic they know, to try and pressure members,” he told CNN’s Jake Tapper.

“And I think that the challenge here is at the end of the day, regardless of who the Speaker is, we need to be able to govern, and we need to be able to govern as a conference and if we can’t do that, and you don’t have a majority, and that really is the fundamental issue here.”

— Regina Zilbermints

GOP Speaker nominee Jim Jordan (Ohio) told The Hill he thinks he will get the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor on the first ballot Tuesday.

“I think so,” Jordan responded when asked if he will get 217 votes on the first ballot, adding “I’m feeling good.”

He said his game plan ahead of Tuesday’s floor vote includes “listening to members.”

“When I left on Friday I said that, you know, those of you who have concerns, let’s talk about those, and I’ve heard their concerns, and I think we’re ready to elect a Speaker tomorrow,” he added.

Jordan also said he plans to address the GOP conference during their closed-door meeting at 6:30 p.m., where he will “talk about coming together for the American people.”

Asked if he plans to address his holdouts directly, Jordan said, “I’m gonna talk to the conference.”

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) was coy when asked by The Hill about his stance Monday.

“I don’t want to reward the bad behavior of Jordan supporters. They broke our conference rules to defeat McCarthy and Scalise, who won by our rules. You can’t have a competition when one side breaks the rules,” he told The Hill by text message.

— Mychael Schnell

Opposition to House GOP Speaker nominee Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is crumbling as Republicans return to Washington for a House vote to try to officially elect him.

Four key lawmakers who had signaled opposition to Jordan last week fell like a set of dominos Monday, giving the Ohio Republican a significant boost ahead of an expected floor vote Tuesday.

“My gut tells me we’re somewhere south of 10 who are still being recalcitrant,” Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) told conservative radio host Erick Erickson when asked Monday about the opposition to Jordan.

It is a remarkable development after 13 days of turbulence in the House GOP following the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), which left many lawmakers and outside observers skeptical that Republicans could coalesce around any candidate.

READ MORE HERE.

— Emily Brooks and Mychael Schnell

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) is the latest anti-Jordan holdout to throw support to the Ohio Republican’s Speakership bid.

Buchanan, a Steve Scalise ally who came out against Jordan last week, said he “had a very productive conversation” with Jordan Monday and would support his candidacy on the House floor.

“Just received a call from @Jim_Jordan and had a very productive conservation. I informed him that I will be offering my support on the House floor. While I have always said that Jim is a good friend, I am deeply frustrated by the way this process has played out,” Buchanan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“However, I believe the future and immediate well-being and security of our country is too important and the need for Republicans to move forward united is greater than ever,” he added in a subsequent post on X.

— Mychael Schnell

Jordan indicated Monday that he would proceed to a House floor vote for Speaker at noon Tuesday regardless of whether he has the 217 votes he needs locked down.

“We will go to the floor tomorrow,” Jordan told CNN on Monday. “It’s not about pressuring anybody. It’s just about, we’ve got to have a Speaker.”

“You can’t open the House and do the work of the American people and help our dearest and closest friend Israel if you don’t have a Speaker,” Jordan said.

Pressed on his previous comments saying he would prefer that the GOP conference first assure that the Speaker nominee has the support from 217 Republicans before going to the floor, Jordan said: “I don’t know if there’s any way to ever get that in the room. I would love that. But I think the only way to do this the way the Founders intended is you have the vote tomorrow.”

Asked if he would have more than one ballot on Tuesday if he does not get 217 votes on the first ballot, Jordan said: “We’re going to elect a Speaker tomorrow. That’s — that’s what I think is gonna happen.”

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) declined to say if he will vote Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for Speaker when his nomination hits the House floor, telling CNN in an interview on Monday “you’ll know how I vote when I vote.”

Womack, an appropriator and Scalise ally, called Jordan “polarizing” last week. But on Monday, he kept his cards close to his vest.

“My understanding is there is a chance that we’re going to be voting on this at noon tomorrow. If that’s the case then we’re gonna know what the vote count is at that time with certainty, and then Mr. Jordan will know whether or not he’s got, he’ll either have the votes or he’ll at least know by roll call who he needs to go work on to try to shore up hat 217,” he said.

The Arkansas Republican said he knows “there are concerns from the Appropriations Committee,” pointing to Jordan’s vote against a continuing resolution that averted a government shutdown, adding that the Ohio Republican “in essence voted for a government shutdown.”

“I know that concerns a lot of appropriators,” he added. “We’re concerned about the numbers that we are being told to write our bills to.”

Womack said he thinks Jordan still faces “an uphill battle to get to 217 on the first ballot if in fact we go tomorrow.” He later floated the idea of working with Democrats, telling CNN that if it “becomes apparent” that nobody can secure 217 votes to win the gavel “we’re gonna have to work across the aisle to try to figure out what it’s going to take for us to be able to get a Speaker elected and then get the ball rolling in Congress once again.”

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) says he is still planning to vote for Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) for Speaker when the House holds a vote on the top job, despite McCarthy saying he does not plan to seek the gavel following his ouster earlier this month.

Gimenez’s support for McCarthy makes it one vote more difficult for Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio), the conference’s Speaker nominee, to clinch the gavel on the House floor. If all members are present and voting, Jordan can only afford to lose four Republicans.

“I am supporting Republican @SpeakerMcCarthy and intend on voting for him on the House Floor. I will NEVER support socialist Hakeem Jeffries and anything to the contrary is a fabrication and a flat-out lie,” Gimenez wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Last week, eight colleagues joined all the socialist Democrats to carry-out a coup against our duly-elected Republican Speaker Kevin McCarthy. These 8 lit the fuse & every Democrat in Congress provided the gunpowder to overthrow the will of 96% of Republicans in Congress who voted to retain Speaker McCarthy. I will not partake in this despicable coup. Speaker McCarthy should have never been removed to begin with,” he added in a series of posts.

— Mychael Schnell

GOP Speaker nominee Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) sent a Dear Colleague letter to House Republicans Monday morning, The Hill first reported, calling for unity.

“The role of a Speaker is to bring all Republicans together. That’s what I intend to do,” Jordan wrote.

In one interesting line, Jordan wrote that he would “make sure there are more Republican voices involved in our major decisions beyond the Five Families.”

“Our goal will be to empower our committees and committee chairs to take the lead on the House’s legislative work through regular order,” Jordan said.

Leaders of the “five families” – the five main ideological caucuses in the House GOP – were heavily involved in negotiations and discussions with ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over various policy issues. Jordan was the founding chairman of one of those groups, the House Freedom Caucus.

— Emily Brooks

Jordan has now also picked up support from Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who had told other news outlets last week that she would not support Jordan.

“Let me be clear, I am not, and will not, work with Democrats as our Republican Conference comes together to elect a conservative Speaker of the House,” Wagner wrote in a statement. “Too much is at stake to hand control of the House over to radical liberal Democrats, which is why we must elect a conservative as the next Speaker. Throughout my time in Congress, I have always been a team player and supported our Republican nominees out of Conference.”

“Jim Jordan and I spoke at length again this morning, and he has allayed my concerns about keeping the government open with conservative funding, the need for strong border security, our need for consistent international support in times of war and unrest, as well as the need for stronger protections against the scourge of human trafficking and child exploitation,” she continued. “Jim Jordan is our conference nominee, and I will support his nomination for Speaker on the House floor.”

— Emily Brooks

Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Calif.) threw his support behind Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) for Speaker Monday morning, a key pickup for the Judiciary Committee chairman as he works to lock down enough support to win the gavel.

“Keeping America safe is my top priority in Congress. After having a conversation with Jim Jordan about how we must get the House back on a path to achieve our national security and appropriations goals, I will be supporting him for Speaker on the floor. Let’s get to work,” Calvert, a member of the Appropriations Committee, wrote on X.

— Mychael Schnell

Senators return to Washington this week feeling completely flummoxed by the turmoil in the House and with no clear idea of whether House Republicans will elect a Speaker anytime soon.

Republican senators have called on their House colleagues to unify behind a Speaker as quickly as possible, but that plea has fallen flat. 

Senate aides and strategists say the leadership vacuum raises doubts about Congress’s ability to pass aid for Israel or Ukraine or to keep the government funded beyond Nov. 17.  

And Senate Republicans fear the ongoing chaos in the House could hurt their chances of taking back the Senate and White House by raising questions about their ability to govern. 

READ MORE HERE.

— Alexander Bolton

House Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers (R-Ala.) announced Monday he will support GOP Speaker nominee Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on the House floor, a major win for Jordan after Rogers had signaled intense opposition to his Speakership last week.

“@Jim_Jordan and I have had two cordial, thoughtful, and productive conversations over the past two days. We agreed on the need for Congress to pass a strong NDAA, appropriations to fund our government’s vital functions, and other important legislation like the Farm Bill,” Rogers said Monday on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“As a result, I have decided to support Jim Jordan for Speaker of the House on the floor,” he continued. “Since I was first elected to the House, I have always been a team player and supported what the majority of the Republican Conference agrees to. Together, our Republican majority will be stronger to fight Joe Biden’s reckless agenda for America.”

Rogers had told reporters ahead of the House GOP’s nominating election Friday that there was nothing that Jordan could do to win his support, and that he would vote for ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

READ MORE HERE.

— Emily Brooks

House Republicans are barreling toward a floor vote on their Speaker nominee — Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) — this week, even as the Judiciary Committee chairman remains far from the 217 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor.

Jordan clinched the nomination for Speaker in a 124-81 vote Friday, beating his last-minute challenger, Rep. Austin Scott (R-Ga.). But when the conference members were asked if they would support Jordan’s nomination on the floor, the vote was 152-55 — leaving Jordan well short of the 217 votes needed to win the Speakership on the House floor.

The planned vote Tuesday is setting the stage for another public clash over the gavel, similar to the four-day, 15-ballot election that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) went through in January.

Some Jordan backers are hoping that bringing his nomination to the floor — and forcing Republicans on the record — will increase the Ohio Republican’s support and put him within reach of the gavel.

READ MORE HERE.

— Mychael Schnell and Emily Brooks