Plan A for Rep. Jim Jordan was to have his House Republican colleagues support his bid for speaker and elect him on the first ballot. That obviously didn’t work out.
Plan B for the far-right House Judiciary Committee chairman was to move quickly to a second ballot, which was expected on the heels of Jordan’s initial failure. The Ohio Republican’s spokesperson said midday, “The House needs a speaker as soon as possible. Expect another round of votes today. It’s time for Republicans to come together.”
Soon after, GOP leaders called it a day — because Jordan clearly didn’t have the votes.
Plan C is to try again with another floor vote in three hours, and a Punchbowl News report concluded that Jordan’s odds of success aren’t great.
It doesn’t look like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) is going to be speaker of the House. If it wasn’t obvious to you Tuesday morning when we laid out 10-plus members who were likely to vote no, it should be obvious now. Jordan lost 20 Republicans on the House floor Tuesday during the speaker tally, netting just 200 votes. He then pushed off another roll-call vote until Wednesday morning as even more Republicans looked ready to go against him. This has been a highly flawed run for the speakership that will be unpacked by aspirants for a long time to come.
The report added, “[A]fter speaking with dozens of members and aides, it doesn’t look to us like the Ohio Republican has any path to victory.”
A note of caution is probably in order. When Jordan launched his candidacy, the conventional wisdom was that he’d almost certainly fail. But by the time the House GOP conference actually voted several days later, he’d gained a significant amount of support, and it appeared he might even prevail.
When he lost to House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, the conventional wisdom said Jordan’s leadership ambitions were dead. Two days later, he was his party’s nominee. Two hours later, he faced dramatic opposition that seemed insurmountable. By Monday afternoon, the Capitol Hill scuttlebutt was that his speakership was suddenly inevitable. Twenty-four hours later, Jordan was toast again.
All of which is to say, this has been a deeply weird rollercoaster ride, and I’d recommend holding off making any firm assumptions about what’s likely to happen.
Are the odds in Jordan’s favor? No, but he flipped an opponent Tuesday night, and his allies have indicated that they’ve seen signs of “progress.” If the size of the Republican opposition shrinks between the first and second ballots, the Ohioan and his allies are very likely to push forward.
If, however, the size of the GOP opposition grows, Jordan will face intense pressure to stand aside.
As the day progresses, Jordan will need to rely on a skill he’s never cultivated: congressional dealmaking. The far-right chairman has excelled when it comes to concocting conspiracy theories, holding circus-like hearings, and maintaining a near-constant presence in conservative media, but Jordan has never shown much interest in the basics of becoming an effective member of Congress. Not to put too fine a point on it, Jordan suddenly finds himself in a position in which he needs to enter negotiations with colleagues, make concessions, cut deals and forge coalitions. Despite having been a federal lawmaker for nearly 17 years, he has no idea how to do any of those things. As a New York Times report added, Jordan is a “hard-right rabble rouser who built his reputation around torpedoing compromises by mainstream Republicans that he found insufficiently conservative,” who is now “in the improbable position of having to haggle with those same colleagues to win their support.” This is not to say that it’s impossible. A variety of prominent GOP officials, including ousted Speaker Kevin McCarthy, are assisting Jordan in a variety of ways, and a great many House Republicans just want the chaos to end. It’s difficult to imagine him winning the gavel on Wednesday, but it’s not impossible. Watch this space.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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