Next Speaker vote set for Thursday as Jordan looks to win backers: live updates

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is urging people to stop making threats against members of Congress just hours after lawmakers failed to elect a new Speaker for the second time this week.

“No American should accost another for their beliefs. We condemn all threats against our colleagues and it is imperative that we come together. Stop. It’s abhorrent,” Jordan wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter.

His comments come after Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) revealed Wednesday she has received death threats after reversing her support for Jordan on the second ballot for Speaker.

Miller-Meeks was one of four Republicans to switch their vote to someone else on the second Speaker ballot after backing the Ohio Republican on the first. The Iowa Republican instead voted for Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas.)

-Lauren Sforza

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) revealed she has received death threats after reversing her support for Jordan on the second Speaker ballot on Wednesday.

Miller-Meeks said she has received “credible death threats” and a “barrage of threatening calls,” according to a statement posted to X, formerly known as Twitter.

She said her office is “cooperating fully” and the proper authorities have been notified.

Miller-Meeks was one of four Republicans to switch their support on Wednesday after voting for Jordan on the first ballot. The Iowa Republican instead voted for Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas.)

“I understand that voting against Rep. Jordan is not popular at this time,” Miller-Meeks wrote. “I respected Jim enough to vote for him, knowing he did not have the votes to be elected. We have had numerous calls to all our offices, and many have urged that I support Jim Jordan and many others urged me to look for a conservative consensus candidate.”

Miller-Meeks said she thinks the GOP party “needs a consensus candidate” to allow the House to work on appropriations, support to Israel and to “stop the insane policies of the Biden administration.”

— Miranda Nazzaro

Senate Republicans on Wednesday signaled they would be open to expanding the powers of Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) as Speaker pro tempore to end the chaos in the House.

Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) said McHenry “might be a landing place” to allow the House to start conducting pressing business.

“He’s a conservative but he’s somebody who’s solutions oriented and practical and understands that part of the job around here, whether we like it or not, is to govern. I think that’s something that he gets, so we’ll see,” Thune said.

“He’s a smart guy,” he continued. “He kind of knows how to navigate the House and I hope that he can figure out a path forward that would avoid [a government shutdown].”

Some conservatives who have backed Jordan as the next Speaker agree — with a caveat.

“I think there’s a very significant difference between doing it temporarily and doing it long-term. Temporarily strikes me as reasonable so the House can function as a governing body,” Sen. J.D. Vance (R-Ohio) told The Hill, noting that he doesn’t know McHenry well, but believes he’d “make a great Speaker.” 

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— Al Weaver

Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry says it’s his “expectation” the GOP conference will meet Thursday.

He didn’t commit to having a noon vote but said “we wanted to have the option to go to the floor.”

Asked why they wouldn’t go to the floor he said “lot of reasons.”

“This is in the Speaker-designate’s hands,” he said.

— Mychael Schnell

President Biden on Wednesday appeared to joke with reporters aboard Air Force One, telling reporters he “aches” for Jordan in the wake of his struggles to secure the votes needed for the Speakership.

Asked if he has a view of Jordan’s “current predicament,” Biden smiled and said, “I ache for him. (chuckles) No. Zero. None,” while putting his hand to his heart. The comments prompted laughter from reporters.

Biden is current visiting Tel Aviv to meet with Israeli leaders and families impacted by Jerusalem’s war with Palestinian militant group Hamas.

— Miranda Nazzaro

A handful of Republicans who voted against Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) are calling on the House to return to the floor Wednesday for a third Speakership vote.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) posted a letter addressed to Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) asking him to call another vote on the Speakership. Simpson had cast his vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) earlier on Wednesday.

“I am requesting that the House immediately come back for a third vote on the Speaker @PatrickMcHenry,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.), Steve Womack (R-Ark.), Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) and John Rutherford (R-Fla.) all reposted Simpson’s tweet to call for the House to return.

Many of the same Republicans had called for a second floor vote on the Speakership on Tuesday, but that vote was ultimately pushed to Wednesday.

— Lauren Sforza

The House will not hold another Speaker vote today, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill.

The House is planning to hold another vote tomorrow, the source added.

— Mychael Schnell

Democratic leaders say they are hanging back and waiting to hear from Republicans on a pathway forward, still stopping short of backing a plan to elect Speaker Pro Temp Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to the role.

“There’s nothing to really talk about yet until it’s clear that we’re not going to go through another futile exercise of trying to elevate an insurrectionist to be the Speaker of the House of Representatives,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said shortly after a spokesman for Jordan said he would pursue a third run for the gavel.

Jeffries said they had not yet been approached by Republicans about a vote to formally install McHenry in his role.

“I have not and we have not had that conversation in caucus. If there’s a real proposal in front of us, we will have to reconvene and have that conversation,” he said.

House Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said they would be willing to talk to “any member of the majority” about a bipartisan plan to move forward but didn’t address McHenry.

“We’re looking for ways to reopen the government and get bipartisan bills to the floor. So the balls in their court. This is their civil war. They’re the majority. They have to elect the speaker. We hope that they will come to us now that there have been two votes, and Jim Jordan has been unable to put it together and find that bipartisanship,” she told reporters after leaving a conference meeting.

“Our unity is our strength,” she added.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) on Wednesday threw his support behind expanding the powers of the Speaker Pro Tempore, the first Democrat to endorse such a move.

“We are exactly 30 days away from a government shutdown and today our country faces numerous domestic challenges and national security threats around the world,” Golden wrote in a statement on X, formerly known as Twitter.

“Now would be a good time to empower the Speaker Pro Tempore to put the House back to work while the House GOP works to find someone who can lead them,” the Maine Democrat continued.

Some Republican lawmakers have doubled down their pressure to take up a resolution that would expand the powers of House Speaker pro tem. The resolution would formally install Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) as Speaker pro tem and widen his powers that he currently has as appointee to the role.

Some have argued this will stop the current paralysis in the House and allow the lower chamber to return to some normal operations until a Speaker is elected.

—Miranda Nazzaro

Rep. Mike García (R-Calif.) said the GOP needs to rethink its lengthy conference meetings after several failed attempts to come to a consensus on a speaker.

“Right now the construct is everyone gets in a room. We open a mic and it’s a therapy session,” he told reporters after Jordan’s second vote.

“That’s not working. That’s not getting us to a position of unity. That’s not getting us to a meaningful position to figure out where people are.”

García suggested the party “sequester ourselves somewhere outside the Beltway” to reach a final decision.

“If I was in a leadership position. I would take this off site somewhere. It sounds silly, but let’s go to Gettysburg or something. Let’s go to somewhere that is meaningful to our nation’s history so that the Republican Party can once again remember why we do what we do,” he said.

Asked if he was concerned whether there was a Republican who could get 217 votes, he said only “yes.”

— Rebecca Beitsch

House Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) surprised many by casting her Speaker vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) on Tuesday — and then stayed mum about why she voted against Jordan.

On Wednesday, after casting a second vote for Scalise, she explained: “Steve Scalise is an honorable man and has earned my vote for Speaker. This was a vote of conscience and I stayed true to my principles. Intimidation and threats will not change my position,” she wrote on X.

Rep. Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) said he thinks Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) has a greater chance of flipping Republican holdouts than Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) does of getting empowered as Speaker Pro Tempore, with the passage of a bipartisan resolution.

Asked whether he thinks Jordan has a better chance than McHenry, Biggs said, “Yeah, because the spread didn’t blow up. I mean, it stayed pretty even and that would have been a telltale sign.”

“I thought the spread would increase but it actually stayed almost static,” he said, referring to the second round of voting for Jordan. “So I think that’s a favorable sign. It means that, if people haven’t totally locked in views, in my opinion, that there’s a way to work through it and get to Jordan there.”

— Sarah Fortinsky and Aris Folley

Rep. Marc Molinaro (R-N.Y.), who supported Jordan, is another voice behind giving more power to the Speaker pro tem.

“It’s very clear to me that the most logical solution at this point is to empower the Speaker pro tem so that we get back to work,” he said.

— Mychael Schnell

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio.) on Wednesday said he still feels like his Speakership candidacy is in good shape, but did not respond directly to a question about whether he plans to hold a third round of voting.

Asked if he plans on having any more votes today, Jordan said, “We don’t know when we’re going to have the next vote, but we’re going to, we want to continue our conversations with our colleagues.”

He said he would talk to House GOP Conference Chair Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) about whether they would hold a conference meeting, but he said he expects most meetings with holdouts to be done individually.

Jordan said he thinks he can win back some of the votes he lost. He also compared his fight to get the Speaker gavel’s to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s.

“Speaker McCarthy, he had a two-month runway from when he got the conference nomination and when we got to that first week of January, so we’re right where he was and his numbers,” he said. “We picked up some today, a couple dropped off, but they voted for me before. I think they can come back again. So we’ll keep talking to members. Keep working on it.”

— Sarah Fortinsky and Emily Brooks

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said House Republicans should look at other Speaker of the House candidates after Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) failed to get enough votes to become Speaker for a second time on Wednesday.

A total of 22 Republicans voted against Jordan in the second ballot. Bacon voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

If Jordan continues into a third ballot, “he’s gonna probably lose another 10 votes,” Bacon said.

“I think Patrick McHenry would make a great speaker. I think Tom Cole would make a great speaker. We have [Mark] Green from Tennessee, [Kevin] Hern from Oklahoma. I think there we have great candidates that could win, I think, 218 votes. This one had a lot of baggage,” he said.

Bacon said he would vote for a resolution to give Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry more power to enable him to preside over the passage of legislation. That would allow the House to address policy issues and delay the Speaker election process.

“I think we need to start legislating and governing,” he continued. “So I support- we need to start working on Israel. The border, a CR appropriations bill.”

— Nick Robertson and Emily Brooks

Rep. Kelly Armstrong (R-N.D.), who is helping Jordan secure votes, said after his second failed Speaker bid the conference may consider expanding McHenry’s powers during another “festivus” conference meeting.

He was apparently referring to previous GOP conference meetings since the ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) that amounted to a forum for Republicans to vent their grievances.

“That’s floating out there. I mean, I may be there in an hour. I’m not there yet,” he told The Hill.

— Rebecca Beitsch

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told reporters on Wednesday that he considers Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry to already have the ability to conduct the business of the House.

“I always thought when I was nominating somebody to be that, that they’d have the power to keep the continuity of government running together,” he said. “Their job is to keep government running while you select a new speaker. And that could be moving at the same time” that the House is considering Jordan.

— Aris Folley

Rep. Carlos Giménez (R-Fla.) said Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) isn’t likely to be elected Speaker of the House in a third vote after he failed to get 217 votes for a second time Wednesday.

Giménez and 21 other Republicans voted against Jordan to become Speaker. Giménez voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.).

“I think that this is a pretty clear indication to our designee that I don’t think it’s gonna happen,” he told The Hill’s Mychael Schnell and other reporters after the second vote. “It may actually get worse in the next round.”

Giménez also signaled that he would vote for a resolution to empower Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) to preside over passing legislation, so that the House can address critical bills before more Speaker votes.

“Whatever resolution can put us back, get the house back and get them working again? Yeah, I’d vote for a resolution like that. We have to. I don’t know how long this is gonna take. Hopefully it won’t take that much longer,” he said.

“I’ve always said that we need to get the right Speaker, not the quick Speaker. That’s what we need to do,” he continued. “So if you put the wrong Speaker in for a short term kind of gain, you’re going to end up, in the long run, not benefiting so I want to make sure we have the right Speaker.”

— Nick Robertson

Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) laid out on Wednesday afternoon what he wants to see in order to throw his vote behind Jordan.

“I’ve said quite clearly keeping the government open while pursuing the commitment to America, showing my district and others who are in blue states some progress on SALT, doing things on flood insurance, doing things on 9/11 compensation,” LaLota told The Hill.

He said and others expect to see “something demonstrable” and “not just promises, not just you know, good thoughts, but folks, co-sponsoring bills, making tweets” of support. Those actions could “bring a number of people to yes.”

He added that it is “absolutely” time to empower the Speaker pro tem to be able to get work done in the House.

— Mychael Schnell

Jordan is not backing away after losing his second ballot for Speaker.

“We’re going to keep going,” his spokesman, Russell Dye, said.

— Mychael Schnell

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) – 212

House Judiciary Committee Chair Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) – 199

House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) – 7

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) – 5

Former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) – 3

Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) – 1

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.) -1

House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-Minn.) – 1

Appropriations Chair Kay Granger (R-Texas) -1

Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.) – 1

Michigan county public works commissioner Candice Miller – 1

Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.) – 1

Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) switched his vote away from Jordan on the second ballot.

“I think it’s time to move on,” he said.

Buchanan is behind fellow Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds. “I think he’s a very talented, capable person.”

— Aris Folley

While the House hasn’t made it official, Jordan appears to have fallen short of the Speakership for a second time, losing 22 Republican votes.

Four Republicans switched their votes away from Jordan on Wednesday:

• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Marianette Miller Meeks (R-Iowa) voted for Granger.
• Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) voted for Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)

In addition, two Republicans flipped to support Jordan on second ballot:

• Rep. Doug LaMalfa (R-Calif.)
• Rep. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.)

And Rep. Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla.) voted for Jordan after being absent on Tuesday.

• Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) voted for McCarthy.
• Rep. Vern Buchanan (R-Fla.) voted for Rep. Byron Donalds (R-Fla.)
• Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) voted for Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.).
• Rep. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (R-Ore.) voted for McCarthy.
• Rep. Anthony D’Esposito (R-N.Y.) voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.).
• Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart (R-Fla.) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Jake Ellzey (R-Texas) voted for Rep. Mike Garcia (R-Calif.)
• Rep. Drew Ferguson (R-Ga.) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Andrew Garbarino (R-N.Y.) voted for Zeldin.
• Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-Fla.) voted for McCarthy.
• Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-Texas) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. John James (R-Texas) voted for former Rep. Candice Miller (R-Mich.).
• Rep. Mike Kelly (R-Pa.) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Jen Kiggans (R-Va.) voted for McCarthy.
• Rep. Nick LaLota (R-N.Y.) voted for Zeldin.
• Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) voted for McCarthy.
• Rep. Marianette Miller Meeks (R-Iowa) voted for Granger.
• Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) voted for Scalise.
• Rep. Pete Stauber (R-Minn.) voted for Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.)
• Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) voted for Scalise.

Rep. Steve Womack (R-Ark.) votes for Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), bringing the GOP votes against Jordan to 22.

Rep. Pete Stauber (Minn.) is the fourth Republican to switch his vote away from Jordan, voting instead for Rep. Bruce Westerman (R-Ark.).

Rep. John Rutherford (R-Fla.) and Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) both vote for Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.), bringing the total Republican votes against Jordan to 20.

Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) on Wednesday likened the House GOP to firefighters. “And like we’re getting all these alarms, fires popping all over the city. And instead of just hopping in the truck and putting them out — Israel, Taiwan, southern border, Ukraine — we’re like arguing over who gets to ride shotgun and drive the truck.”

Gallagher said he backs giving Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry more power in that post, but he added it isn’t a full solution and he has two issues with it: “One, if it’s a short time period, you’re just punting the problem for two weeks or even to the end of the year. And then we’re back in the situation when I very much feel like whoever it is basically needs to say, I’ll do this until the end of Congress, but like we’re not doing these shenanigans again. So fix the motion to vacate, and I’m just gonna get to the end of Congress.”

— Aris Folley

Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa) flipped her vote away from Jordan, voting for Rep. Kay Granger (R-Texas).