Jim Jordan has failed a third time to get the majority vote he needed to win the speakership, instead losing support from fellow Republicans.
The shortfall follows growing losses of votes on Tuesday and Wednesday. He met with opponents Thursday but they didn’t budge, and later three more GOP defectors emerged on the third ballot — bringing his total number of Republican votes against him to 25.
Jordan has spent the week trying to rally critics into backing him, but instead he is losing backers within the conference. House Republicans are now expected to convene at 1 p.m. for yet another private meeting in a week full of tense sitdowns.
“We’ll just talk to the conference some more, listen some more, figure out how we can get a speaker,” Jordan told reporters. “All I know is we need to get a speaker of the House and the fastest way to do that is a guy who has between 195 and 200 votes.”
Any momentum Jordan’s candidacy had earlier this week has effectively evaporated. He offered no indication of whether or when he will seek a fourth ballot, though his allies have suggested they will keep pushing. Some House Republicans have already floated alternative paths to return the House to a functioning body.
Three new Republicans flipped from yes to no on Jordan in the third ballot: Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick (Pa.), Marc Molinaro (N.Y.) and Thomas Kean (N.J.). All three represent battleground districts where President Joe Biden won in 2020, which could make sticking with Jordan a liability.
Before the vote, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy nominated Jordan for the job he himself was forced out of more than two weeks ago. McCarthy framed Jordan — with whom he’s fought bitterly over the years — as a fighter and experienced Hill veteran. But the words of their former leader didn’t bring House Republicans any closer to electing a new one.
Rep. Andy Ogles (R-Tenn.) backed Jordan on the third ballot but said before it even ended that if he “can’t get the votes, then we need to vote on somebody else.” Ogles added that he’d continue to vote for Jordan “but the question is, how long is he going to continue.”
“He needs to realize he’s lost,” said Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.), who has opposed Jordan from the start.
Describing a Thursday meeting that Jordan held with holdout votes, Bacon added: “Yesterday he was on the verge of conceding, and then he flipped. You could tell when we were talking to him — we were under the impression he was about ready to fold yesterday when we were talking to him.”
House Republicans left the floor midday Friday with little hope that their speakership crisis would end any time soon. Asked if he expected weekend votes, as Jordan allies have threatened, Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) quipped that “I think this is going to go until Thanksgiving.”
The decision to try to keep the House in session during the weekend is a risky one, if Jordan makes it: Should the GOP find more of its members absent than on the Democratic side, losing members from four-vote majority could end up handing House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) the gavel inadvertently.
Caitlin Emma and Olivia Beavers contributed.
