UPDATE (Oct. 24, 2023, 4:34 p.m. ET): Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., dropped out of the Republican House speaker race on Tuesday, hours after winning his party’s nomination.
In late September, as several far-right House Republicans plotted to take down then-House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, The Washington Post reported that the GOP faction was “coalescing around nominating a member of McCarthy’s leadership team, Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.), to be the next speaker.”
Oddly enough, that plan appears to be on track — though there’s been a staggering amount of dysfunction, partisan strife, and Republican melodrama between that Post report from a month ago and now, and the process still has some difficult steps ahead.
Nine GOP members sought the party’s nomination, and following five rounds of closed-door secret balloting, the House majority whip prevailed. NBC News reported:
Republicans nominated Emmer to be House speaker, the third lawmaker to be nominated as the chamber enters its third week without a leader. Emmer defeated [GOP Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson of Louisiana] in the final round of voting.
For those keeping score, Plan A for Republicans was former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, but several of his own members helped force him from his position in a historic rebuke. Plan B was House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, but he too faced insurmountable opposition from GOP members and quit after one day. Plan C was House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, who managed to receive 200 votes on the House floor, before ultimately failing in the face of growing Republican opposition.
All of which brings us to Emmer, who can fairly be seen as the party’s Plan D.
Under normal circumstances, and in a healthy and mature political party, the next step would be simple and entirely straightforward: Emmer is the choice of the majority party, so his speakership would be all but assured.
Except, these aren’t normal circumstances, and even many congressional Republicans would pause before characterizing the current state of their party as healthy and mature.
Once Emmer became the speaker-designate, the House GOP conference held a second vote — what’s often referred to as a “validation vote” — intended to gauge how members were prepared to vote as Emmer’s nomination advanced to the floor. While secret ballots were used this morning, this vote was a roll call.
NBC News, relying on a tally from GOP Rep. Brandon Williams of New York, reported that 26 House Republicans ended up not backing Emmer, either voted present or voted for another candidate. (Republican Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, meanwhile, told NBC News the number was 28.)
That might not sound like much in a conference of 221 members — Jordan, in contrast, confronted 55 opponents after he secured the nomination — but if Emmer intends to get the gavel, he can lose no more than four Republican votes. Indeed, the nature of how the process unfolded over the course of the last four hours is relevant. Emmer entered the day as the likely victor, but it’s not as if he can credibly claim an overwhelming mandate from his colleagues. On the first round of balloting, he received 78 votes (which represented roughly 35% of the House Republican conference). On the second ballot, the Minnesotan improved to 90 votes (41%). Then Emmer received 100 votes (45%), followed by 107 votes (48%). On the fifth and final ballot, in a two-man contest, the GOP leader finished with 117 votes (53%), which was enough to succeed, but which nevertheless reflected a close contest. For his intraparty skeptics, this matters: Emmer’s GOP opponents can credibly claim that he was not the overwhelming choice of the party, so they’re under no real obligation to rally behind him. So what happens now? It’s possible that Emmer will meet with his Republican detractors, they’ll work something out, and we’ll soon see a floor vote on his prospective speakership. It’s also possible that GOP leaders will determine that he does not have the votes to succeed — at least not yet — and that rushing a doomed floor vote would only reflect more chaos. As of 2 p.m. ET, the conference was taking a two-hour break. Watch this space. This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
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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