U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) has failed in his third attempt to become the speaker of the House of Representatives, and it now appears that House Republicans are moving on to a new candidate.
The Hill reports that Jordan did worse in the third vote than he did in the first two.
Jordan, in that third vote on Friday, only received 194 votes with 25 Republicans voting against him. This is well short of the 217-vote threshold.
The big question, now, is where do House Republicans go from here?
Prior to the third vote, Jordan had indicated that he planned to spend the weekend trying to garner enough support to become speaker.
But, his candidacy now is be over.
Fox reports that, after Jordan failed in his third attempt to become House speaker on Friday, House Republicans met in a closed-door meeting and decided to remove Jordan's nomination for speaker.
Per the outlet:
The House GOP conference on Friday voted to drop Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan as its speaker nominee after a third defeat in floor-wide votes earlier today. Sources told Fox News Digital that the conference had voted to remove Jordan as the nominee in a closed-door meeting.
What we are left with is a lot of uncertainty about where things are going to go from here.
One possibility that seems to be gaining some traction is to pass a measure that would allow acting speaker pro tempore U.S. Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-NC) to become the elected speaker pro tempore for a period of time - perhaps through the end of the year.
But, it appears that House Republicans will only look to do this as a last resort and that, instead, they will pick and try to elect at least one more candidate before empowering McHenry.
Some possible speaker candidates include U.S. Reps. Kevin Hern (R-OK), Jack Bergman (R-MI), Byron Donalds (R-FL), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Mike Johnson (R-LA), and others.
What all of these possibilities suggest is that House Republicans remain divided, which is exactly what we have seen thus far. The fact is that the Republicans have the votes to select a candidate of their choice but, thus far, they have refused to unite behind someone.
The big concern in all of this is that a speaker will be elected who will be a bit too willing to make concessions to the Democrats and that, as a result, House Republicans will essentially lose their majority.
