GOP Lawmakers React After Jordan Ousted As Speaker Candidate Following Failed Votes
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan is no longer a candidate for Speaker after he was ousted by members following a failed third vote on Friday.
Jordan had even more Republicans vote against him in the third round of voting for the House speaker’s gavel on Friday.
25 Republicans voted against Jordan, giving him just 194 votes — far short of the approximately 217 he would need to win the speaker’s race. It’s his lowest total so far in the three ballots.
Jordan had previously indicated he was ready to push for votes through the weekend in an effort to secure the gavel.
“Our plan this weekend is to get a speaker elected to the House of Representatives as soon as possible so we can help the American people,” Jordan told reporters ahead of the failed third vote.
The failure to elect Jordan outraged conservative lawmakers and pundits.
“Imagine how much healthier the Republican Party would be with Jim Jordan as Speaker, Rick Scott as Senate Minority Leader, and Harmeet Dhillon as RNC Chair,” Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk wrote on the X platform.
“The Republican Party is non-existent. Time for an America First party. Railroading Jim Jordan was the final straw. If he could not secure Speaker of the House, no ‘America First’ rep can,” another user wrote.
On Thursday, Jordan proposed putting his campaign on hold in order to back an increase in interim House Speaker Patrick T. McHenry’s (R-NC) authority to handle certain legislative matters. After a long and contentious meeting, the GOP conference abandoned the effort.
Twenty of Jordan’s fellow Republicans voted against him for speaker on Tuesday. On Wednesday, that total hit 22. With a razor-thin majority in the House, Jordan could afford to lose only four Republican votes.
During a news conference on Friday morning, Fox News reporter Chad Pergram asked Jordan: “Lay out your path. Are you going to call roll call vote after roll call vote today and tomorrow, into the weekend, and try to wear your opponents down? Because it didn’t seem — “
Jordan jumped in and responded: “Well, you all said we were going to, between the first vote and the second vote, you all said we will lose 10 to 15 votes. We stayed the same. We’ve picked up a few, we lost a few. I think the ones we lost can come back. So, look, there have been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before, we all know that. I just know that we need a speaker as soon as possible so we can get to work for the American people.”
The campaign to oust former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) earlier this month was led by Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.).
