WASHINGTON — Centrist and politically vulnerable Republicans face a moment of reckoning as the House is expected to vote on whether to elect Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio as the next speaker.
Jordan is a right-wing firebrand and fierce Donald Trump ally, a Freedom Caucus co-founder who worked his way up to be Judiciary Committee chairman and became the party's nominee for speaker last week after it ousted Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., and forced Rep. Steve Scalise, R-La., to withdraw due to a lack of support.
A House vote could take place as early as Tuesday, and while it’s still unclear if Jordan has the votes, the trends are in his favor.
It’s a grueling decision for the GOP lawmakers who fear Jordan’s scorched-earth brand of politics won’t suit their swing districts and could alienate the independent voters they rely on to get elected. Lawmakers from the self-styled “governing wing” of the party also worry that supporting Jordan, a favorite of the right, would amount to rewarding what they see as bad behavior by the far-right rebels who voted to evict McCarthy and throw the House into chaos.
“It’ll be enormously problematic for the Republicans in those districts that Joe Biden won,” said former swing-district Rep. Charlie Dent, R-Pa., referring to the 18 Biden-district GOP lawmakers. “Swing district Republicans are going to have Jim Jordan and Donald Trump draped around their necks in the 2024 election ... It’s a lot easier to go after Jim Jordan for the events of Jan. 6 and his role in it with Trump than just about any other Republican.”
Two Jordan allies said they expect he will put lawmakers on the record on the floor of the House and dial up the grassroots pressure on the opponents.
Some aides expect centrist Republicans to fold and back Jordan, saying they have a reputation for caving when push comes to shove.
“The people opposing him are moderates. Either he gets it or the moderates for the first time ever grow a spine,” one GOP aide said.
Dent pleaded with his former colleagues: Don't cave.
“My advice to those wavering members is: Don’t buckle under this pressure. It will only get worse. If Jordan were to become speaker this type of bullying will be used to get people to fall in line,” he said. “This is a time to fight... You’d be rewarding horrible behavior.”
Democrats use Jordan against Republicans
Democrats are already exploiting the predicament. A new robocall campaign by the group House Majority Forward targets 11 districts and highlights Biden-district freshman Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., asking voters to call him and request he reject Jordan. The robocall says Jordan “voted to overturn the 2020 election, defended the criminals who attacked the Capitol on Jan. 6, and is in favor of an extreme agenda to ban abortion nationwide.”
(A Lawler spokesperson didn't immediately return a message seeking comment on how he would vote if Jordan came to the floor.)
Jordan would be an atypical speaker after a succession of Republicans like McCarthy, Paul Ryan and John Boehner, who had strong conservative credentials but were willing to cut deals with Democrats to keep government functioning.
“I’m optimistic. I think we’re gonna have a new speaker,” Rep. Larry Bucshon, R-Ind., said. “He’s within 5-10 votes probably. That’d be my guess.” He said that he hopes Jordan can get the votes on the first ballot Tuesday, but if not there will be more ballots. And he dismissed concerns about the political fallout of electing Jordan.
“I think the American people will be pleasantly surprised with Speaker Jordan,” Bucshon said.
In a letter Monday, Jordan told Republicans he understands their “frustrations about the treatment of Kevin McCarthy and Steve Scalise" and vowed to be a unifying force within the party.
“The role of a Speaker is to bring all Republicans together. That’s what I intend to do. We will make sure there are more Republican voices involved in our major decisions beyond the Five Families,” he said, referring to the five key factions within the conference.
Republican operatives say Jordan lacks familiarity with a key facet of the job: helping endangered incumbents.
“It will be interesting to see if Jordan demonstrates any awareness of how tough (often pointless) votes could imperil his colleagues,” Brendan Buck, a former adviser to Ryan and Boehner, said. “He’s never shown much concern about them before.”
“And front-liners are not helpless, but their reality is a fate determined largely by the political environment. If the House completely burns down and the generic ballot goes way south, they’re the first to go,” he added, referring to the shifting preferences of voters on which party should control Congress.
Republican lobbyist and former campaign operative Liam Donovan said speakers traditionally want to give vulnerable members legislative wins to tout and deliver funds to help them.
“While he has said all the right things, Jordan doesn’t have a great track record in this regard, which has to give GOP majority makers pause,” he said.
Jordan has 'credibility with the hard-liners'
Still, Donovan said the eagerness to restart business in the House might compel Jordan’s critics to fold.
“On the other hand, these members desperately want the House to get back to normal, and if Jordan’s credibility with the hard-liners can deliver some sense of ongoing stability for the conference, that might be enough,” he said.
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee spokesman Viet Shelton called Jordan a “conspiracy-peddling hard-liner” and said the acquiescence to Jordan shows that there “are no more moderates in the Republican conference” who are willing to counteract the wishes of the “far-right fringes.”
“By tying their political futures to an election-denying, anti-law enforcement, pro-shutdown far-right extremist, these so-called moderates are hand-delivering the DCCC content for campaign ads ahead of next year but, more importantly, they are doing a grave disservice to their country,” Shelton said.
Former Rep. Leonard Lance, R-N.J., who represented a swing district, said he would have voted against Jordan if he were still in the House and would instead seek to draft an institutionalist.
Among his concerns is Jordan’s objections to certifying President Joe Biden’s victory in 2020 based on a lie that the election was stolen — and his aggressive public campaign to sell that fabricated claim.
“I think we should have recognized that President Biden won the election and I would not have been involved in questioning President Biden’s election,” Lance said. “And I think in order to govern effectively we should look to a member who could bring cohesion to the caucus but to the House in its entirety.”
A senior GOP aide rebuked the tactics of Jordan allies, saying that since McCarthy's ouster, they "have been threatening people who don’t want to vote for Jordan with primaries, conservative media hit pieces and mean tweets from their influencer army as a means to intimidate them into voting for him.”
Dent said that at a bare minimum, any swing-district Republican should extract public concessions from Jordan before voting for him — such as a guaranteed vote on Ukraine funding and promises to keep the government open and not strangle bipartisan bills.
“They have the most to lose. Their seats are most at risk,” he said. “I would not put up a vote for Jim Jordan without conditions. I mean I’d have a hard time doing it anyway. But to do it without conditions? I don’t get it.”
