House Republicans plan to try on Tuesday to choose a nominee for speaker after the party’s two previous candidates failed to secure enough support to win the job.
The House has been paralyzed without a speaker since Kevin McCarthy was ousted on Oct. 3, unable to act on any legislation, including emergency aid for Israel and Ukraine or an agreement to avert an impending US government shutdown on Nov. 17.
GOP members emerged from a question-and-answer forum of eight new candidates late Monday night with Tom Emmer of Minnesota seen as the frontrunner for the nomination. Yet no contender was viewed as having a firm hold of the party’s majority to win.
Multiple rounds of voting is expected Tuesday behind closed doors before the party’s official designee for speaker will emerge.
Even then, lawmakers said, that person will have more work to shore-up the almost unanimous support in disunified party— at least 217 votes — needed to win the gavel in a floor election that includes Democrats.
Representative Byron Donalds of Florida was among those making a strong late push, exiting the meeting saying he was heading to a late night of more calls and discussions with colleagues on why he should be chosen. But like several of the other hopefuls, Donalds said, “Whoever it is, I will support.”
Another strong bid was being made by Representative Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, who said after the meeting he expected to win. “I didn’t get in this to come in second or to lose.”
Winning the nomination is no guarantee of ultimate success, as both hardline conservative Jim Jordan and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana have been forced to abandon their candidacies for speaker after winning the nomination. Neither could lock up enough unified party backing to win on the floor. Jordan failed in three floor votes. Scalise did not even try.
Read More: Republicans Abandon Jordan as Speaker Nominee, Adding to Turmoil
The succession battle that began when eight GOP rebels ousted McCarthy has heightened ideological tensions and personal grudges in a party already riven by divisions among an emerging populist wing linked to Trump, traditionalist conservatives and more moderate lawmakers elected from areas that voted for President Joe Biden in 2020.
The candidates made their cases at a closed-door session on Capitol Hill Monday night.
“We’ve got a black box and we don’t know what’s inside it,” Representative Mike Garcia of California said afterward. “We’ll find out when we open it tomorrow.”
Party rules call for nomination of the first Republican to win a majority of GOP lawmakers. Election as speaker, however, requires a majority of the entire House, which means the nominee can only lose four House Republicans against what’s assumed to be a unified Democratic opposition.
Also in the running are No. 5 Republican Mike Johnson of Louisiana, former campaign chairman Pete Sessions of Texas and high-profile Floridian of the conservative House Freedom Caucus.
This group is complemented by a group of lesser-known men who could become the consensus candidate if agreement cannot be reached on the others. These include Jack Bergman of Michigan, Austin Scott of Georgia and Gary Palmer of Alabama.
Representative Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania dropped out of the race on Monday night.
--With assistance from Jonathan Tamari and Maeve Sheehey.