House Republicans nominate Tom Emmer for Speaker, but it’s already dramatically falling apart behind the scenes
As of yesterday it was pretty clear that Tom Emmer and Byron Donalds were the two frontrunners for Speaker of the House, and sure enough, Emmer got the nomination today. Now all the other candidates have dropped out (including Donalds), except for election denying extremist Mike Johnson. And this could be a problem for House Republicans.
In today’s House Republican conference meeting, there were more than two dozen votes against Emmer. Many of them voted for Jim Jordan (who’s not in the race), while many of them voted for Mike Johnson. It appears Johnson is mainly in the race to give far right House Republicans an excuse to vote against Emmer and tank his candidacy.
According to multiple major news outlets, House Republicans are now forcing the anti-Emmer voters to stand before the conference and explain themselves, in an effort to pressure them into coming around to Emmer. But no one seems to have any idea whether Emmer can get the votes or not. He would need to convince roughly twenty House Republicans to come around to him.
House Republicans are supposedly meeting again later today to try to sort it all out. At this point there’s no trying to predict how it’ll play out, because this is just pure chaos. The Republicans are now on their third nominee for Speaker of the House in the past two weeks, and they’re once again publicly and privately squabbling over it. These people are idiots, and need to lose the House majority next year.
