House Republicans reassembled Friday at 1:00 pm Eastern for another candidate forum as frontrunner Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) works to lock up the nomination.
Jordan has fresh opposition in a last-minute challenge from Rep. Austin Scott (R-GA),
A handful of Republicans advocating to return the gavel to Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) may back Scott or vote “present” despite McCarthy publicly backing Jordan.
McCarthy reportedly stood in this morning’s GOP conference meeting to ask his supporters to refrain from nominating him.
But Scott, who told reporters today that he did not have plans to run before this morning, reportedly told his colleagues he will vote for Jordan on the floor should he win the nomination.
REP. AUSTIN SCOTT said in the House Republican Conference meeting that he would vote for Jim Jordan on the floor if he was the nominee.
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) October 13, 2023
The field might grow larger. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), who supports Jordan, said Friday others might hop in as well. “It’s gonna be a race. It’s not a coronation.”
Yet Jordan allies feel he has the numbers to win outright and are hoping to run up the score to give his nomination strength heading to the House floor.
That could happen as soon as today. Around a dozen Republicans who skipped today missed this morning’s meeting, although they have been summoned back.
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Rep. Katherine Clark (D-MA), the minority whip, advised her members of a possible vote Friday afternoon and summoned them back to Washington as well.
Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) withdrew from the race Thursday night after bleeding support in the 24 hours after securing the nomination. In that vote, he failed to receive majority support from Republicans eligible to vote on the house floor.
Lacking the necessary Republican support to win on the floor, Scalise decided taking his nomination to the floor would not improve his chances.
Jordan’s calculus is different. He said before the candidate forum he would like to take the vote to the floor as “soon as possible.”
Jordan on when he'd want a floor vote for Spkr: Soon as possible..We'll see how the forum goes, but we feel good. We do have members who I think both Republican and Democrat members who aren't in town..So you got to allow for them to come back.
— Chad Pergram (@ChadPergram) October 13, 2023
Given Jordan’s immense popularity with the Republican base, any holdouts likely would receive blowback back home.
“I do believe that Jim Jordan can get to 217 on the floor, primarily because he has outside support, which is what Steve Scalise lacked,” said Massie.
Massie explained Jordan’s strategy for taking it to the floor:
You know when you go to the floor and you start voting, it changes the dynamic, and the dynamic in January was it was in some ways popular to vote against Kevin McCarthy, which made it harder for him to get to 217… That dynamic will be completely different with Jim Jordan on the floor. Republicans, not just the base, but a majority of Republicans know who Jim Jordan is, they’ve seen him on tv, and they believe he’s qualified to lead our conference. So they will ask their congressmen to vote for Jim Jordan.
He added, “I think it would be multiple rounds with each round seeing an increase in votes for Jim Jordan.”
Follow Bradley Jaye on Twitter at @BradleyAJaye.
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