Washington — House Republicans voted to drop Rep. Jim Jordan as their nominee for speaker after he failed to win a majority three times this week, sending the party back to the drawing board and leaving the House leaderless for at least three more days.
The House Republican Conference gathered for a closed-door meeting Friday afternoon, where they voted by secret ballot on whether Jordan should remain the nominee. Eighty-six members said Jordan should remain in the race, and 112 said he shouldn’t, according to lawmakers who were in the room.
“I thought it was important that we all know, get an answer to the question if they wanted me to continue in that role,” Jordan said after the meeting. “So we put the question to them, they made a different decision.”
The move to drop Jordan followed an earlier vote on the House floor that made clear his support was eroding. Jordan won 194 votes in this round, compared to 200 in the first round on Tuesday and 199 in the second on Wednesday. The number of Republicans voting for various non-Jordan protest candidates grew over the course of the three rounds, from 20, to 22, to 25 on Friday.
Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, who is leading the House through the process of finding a permanent speaker, said Republicans will hold another forum for candidates on Monday, with the goal of holding a vote on the floor on Tuesday morning.
“It is my goal to be talking to you at this time next Friday as chairman of the Financial Services Committee,” McHenry said.
