The far-right congressman Jim Jordan lost a third consecutive bid for speaker on Friday, failing to overcome entrenched opposition from a widening group of Republican holdouts, some of whom say they have received death threats for blocking his ascent to the gavel.
With the House leaderless for an 18th day, Jordan, a founder of the ultra-conservative House Freedom caucus and hard-charging ally of Donald Trump who led the congressional effort to overturn the 2020 presidential election, won 194 votes, well shy of the majority needed to be elected speaker.
In a troubling sign for Jordan, 25 Republicans voted against his nomination, three more than in the second vote and five more than in his first failed effort. All Democrats rallied behind their party’s leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York, who received 210 votes.
Earlier on Friday, Jordan indicated that he was prepared to plough through several more rounds of balloting, noting that it took the former Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy, 15 rounds to claim the gavel. Following the third vote on Friday, Republicans were planning to retreat once again behind closed doors to chart their next steps.
Nominating Jordan for the job, McCarthy nodded to the chaos engulfing House Republicans. “Being speaker is not an easy job, especially in this conference,” he said, drawing some laughs in the chamber. But he urged the group he once led to set aside their objections and grievances and vote for Jordan: “I know he is ready for the job.”
Congresswoman Kathleen Clark, the No 2 House Democrat, then nominated Jeffries to the speakership, warning that Jordan was a “true threat to our democracy and our constitution”.
“It is not too late for the majority to choose a bipartisan path forward to reopen the House,” she said.
The speaker’s chair has been empty since a cadre of hardline Republicans ousted McCarthy at the start of the month, a first in American history. Without a speaker, the immobilized chamber has been unable to conduct legislative business as wars rage in Europe and the Middle East and a government shutdown looms unless Congress passes a federal funding bill before mid-November.
The White House on Friday sent a sprawling package to Congress, requesting more than $105bn in funding to, among other things, aid Ukraine and Israel and address rising numbers of migrants entering the country without authorization at the US-Mexico border.
At a brief press conference on Friday morning, Jordan attempted to rally his conference behind him with remarks that placed his quest to win the speakership alongside American achievements like taking flight and landing on the moon.
“The fastest way to get to work for the American people is to elect a speaker so the House can be open and we can get things done,” Jordan said on Friday morning.
After three failed votes in which Jordan saw his opposition widen, additional rounds of balloting were not expected to break the impasse. A number of the holdouts have expressed their outrage at the hardball tactics employed by Jordan’s allies to win over their votes, which has devolved into harassing calls and even death threats against lawmakers and their families.
“One thing I cannot stomach or support is a bully,” said a statement from the congresswomanMariannette Miller-Meeks, an Iowa Republican, who switched her vote against Jordan on a second ballot after receiving “credible death threats”.
With no end in sight to the present situation on Capitol Hill, a bipartisan group of lawmakers proposed a plan to expand the authority of the interim speaker, a position currently held by Patrick McHenry of North Carolina. Jordan briefly backed the proposal as a way to allow Congress to return to its work while he continued to campaign for the post that is second in line to the presidency.
But a group of hard-right conservatives revolted, calling the plan “asinine” and arguing that it would in effect cede control of the floor to Democrats. Jordan dropped the idea and vowed to fight on.
Republican infighting reached a boiling point this week as lawmakers vented their frustration and traded accusations of who was to blame for plunging the party – and the chamber – into chaos.
The bitter feud over Jordan’s speakership bid has pitted an assorted coalition of political moderates and institutional pragmatists against the pugnacious chair of the judiciary committee. The Ohio Republican has relied on an endorsement from Trump, the frontrunner for the 2024 Republican nomination, and support from the party’s conservative grassroots to pressure them to fall in line behind him.
Concerns about a Jordan speakership vary. Some fear his combative brand of politics will make it harder for Republicans to defend their House majority in the 2024 elections, while others believed the challenges facing the country and the world were too great to hand the gavel to a lawmaker one former Republican speaker branded a “legislative terrorist”.
Jordan’s refusal to accept the results of the 2020 election that Trump lost to Joe Biden has also cost him the vote of at least one Republican lawmaker, Ken Buck, a conservative from Colorado.
Asked on Friday whether he believes the 2020 election was stolen, Jordan replied: “I think there were all kinds of problems with the 2020 election.”
In the narrowly divided House, Jordan would need the support of nearly every Republican in the conference to claim the gavel. In a second ballot on Wednesday, Jordan also lost ground, with 22 Republicans voting against him, two more than on the first ballot.
Late on Thursday, Jordan met with his detractors. At the press conference, he characterized the conversation as “good” but it was clear he remained far off from winning the 217 votes needed to become speaker.
Following a meeting with Jordan, the congressman Mike Lawler, a New York Republican opposed to Jordan, called for the conference to reinstate McCarthy or empower McHenry.
“We must prove to the American people that we can govern effectively and responsibly or, in 15 months, we’ll be debating who the minority leader is and preparing for Joe Biden’s second inaugural,” he said.
