Jim Jordan just lost the Speaker vote. Here’s what comes next.
Yesterday we saw a lot of news about various House Republicans pivoting to Jim Jordan. What we didn’t see was whether it was going to be enough votes to put him over the top. After all, a lot of House Republicans stayed silent yesterday about their intentions. As it turned out, Jordan lost pretty badly in today’s full House floor vote. Twenty House Republicans voted against him, leaving him far short of becoming Speaker. So what now?
The immediate question is how many of these twenty House Republicans were simply looking to make a strategic statement by voting against Jordan in the first round, and how many of them have dug in with the intent on making sure Jordan loses. One thing we do know is that if Jordan thought these votes against him were going to automatically fall in line on a second vote, he’d have held it immediately. Instead he and his allies are stalling, which suggests that Jordan doesn’t think he’ll have the votes in the second round, and wants to buy a little time to try to go change some minds.
So far the leaks to the media have pointed to things potentially going in either direction – which is to be expected, given that leaks to the media are often a matter of politicians taking what they hope will happen and leaking it as if it’s something that’s going to happen. A couple of the people who voted against Jordan have leaked that they’re open to voting for him in the next round. But perhaps more interestingly, Steve Scalise’s allies are leaking that a number of people who voted for Jordan are planning to bail after round two or three if Jordan hasn’t locked it up by then. We’ll see.
What’s interesting to me is that the votes against Jim Jordan are such an odd mix of people. Three of them are House Republicans in moderate toss-up districts, where voting for someone like Jordan would play poorly with constituents. Then there’s Victoria Spartz, who’s retiring in 2024 and doesn’t have to care about reelection. So that could be four votes right there who remain firmly against Jordan in subsequent rounds, even if others cave.
Then there’s House Appropriations Committee Chair Kay Granger. Why did she vote against Jordan? Hard to believe she’d be sticking her neck out like this, and alienate Jordan in the process, unless she has a viable plan to make sure he doesn’t become Speaker. So we’ll see what, if anything, Granger has up her sleeve.
I’m making no prediction on where the Speaker vote will go from here. That’s because we simply know too little about why these House Republicans are actually voting against Jim Jordan, and what their intention is for subsequent rounds. I will say that the longer we go without a second vote being scheduled, the worse it’ll be for Jordan’s prospects. But it could go either way.
In any case, some House Republicans in toss-up districts did indeed vote for Jim Jordan in the first round today, meaning they just handed us political ammunition to use against them in 2024. So regardless of how this plays out, the Democrats’ prospects for taking the House majority in 2024 are going up by the hour. Let’s keep that in mind even as the rest of this process plays out.
