Rep Jim Jordan lost further support on the third ballot in his bid for House speaker, with the number of Republicans voting against him increasing to 25.
Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy took to the floor of the House on Friday to nominate Mr Jordan as his replacement as the third vote on his speakership bid got underway.
“Jim Jordan is an effective legislator. To legislate is about more than the name on the bill,” he said. “It’s about reaching compromise and working long hours. Behind the scenes to get the job done.”
Mr Jordan held a short press conference on Friday morning, lasting only about 10 minutes and taking few questions from reporters.
“Between the first one and the second vote, you all said we’re gonna lose 10, 15 votes,” Mr Jordan told the press. “We picked up a few we lost a few. I think the ones we lost can come back. So look, there’s been multiple rounds of votes for speaker before.”
On the first vote, 20 Republicans voted against Mr Jordan, and 22 did so on the second. Mr McCarthy took 15 rounds of voting before he managed to get across the line in January.
Out of 429 total votes, Mr Jordan received 194, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries received 210, interim Speaker Patrick McHenry got six, Rep Byron Donalds got two, Rep Tom Emmer received one vote, former Rep Lee Zeldin got four, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the first GOP nominee, got eight votes, Reps Mike Garcia and Bruce Westerman got one vote, and Mr McCarthy got two.
Mr Jordan received the GOP nomination for the speakership on Friday following Mr Scalise’s failure to gather the support he needed. Mr Scalise chose to end his bid before bringing it to a floor vote.
This comes more than two weeks after the ouster of Mr McCarthy when eight House Republicans voted with all the Democrats to remove him from the post after just nine months.
Back in January, it took 15 rounds of voting for Mr McCarthy to become speaker.
These are the Republicans who didn’t vote for Mr Jordan on the third ballot on Friday:
- Rep Don Bacon voted for Mr McHenry
- Rep Vern Buchanan voted for Mr Donalds (Flipped to vote against Mr Jordan on second ballot)
- Rep Ken Buck voted for Rep Tom Emmer
- Rep Lori Chavez-DeRemer voted for Mr McHenry
- Rep Anthony D’Esposito voted for Mr Zeldin, the 2022 New York GOP gubernatorial nominee.
- Rep Mario Diaz-Balart voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep Jake Ellzey voted for Mr Garcia
- Rep Drew Ferguson voted for Mr Scalise (Flipped on second)
- Rep Brian Fitzpatrick voted for Mr McHenry (Flipped on third ballot)
- Rep Andrew Garbarino voted for Mr Zeldin
- Rep Carlos Gimenez voted for Mr McCarthy
- Rep Tony Gonzales voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep Kay Granger voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep John James voted for Mr Donalds
- Rep Thomas Kean voted for Mr McCarthy (Flipped on third)
- Rep Mike Kelly of Pennsylvania voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep Jen Kiggans voted for Mr McHenry
- Rep Mike Lawler voted for Mr McHenry
- Rep Nick LaLota voted for Mr Zeldin
- Rep Mariannette Miller-Meeks voted for Mr McHenry (Flipped on second)
- Rep Marc Molinaro voted for Mr Zeldin (Flipped on third)
- Rep John Rutherford voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep Mike Simpson voted for Mr Scalise
- Rep Pete Stauber voted for Mr Westerman (Flipped on second)
- Rep Steve Womack voted for Mr Scalise
