After Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) came up 17 votes short of the magic number needed to secure the speaker's gavel on Tuesday, the House of Representatives gathered again on Wednesday for its second attempt at electing a speaker since Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) was ousted earlier in October.
At 12:11 PM, the House began a manual roll call vote on election of Speaker.
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) October 18, 2023
Again, Jordan was nominated by Republicans and Hakeem Jeffries was nominated by Democrats, and again the clerk proceeded through a roll-call vote of all 433 members who were present in the chamber. Again, Jordan came up short.
The final tally in round two was even worse for Jordan than the first round: there were 199 votes for Jordan, 212 for Jeffries, and 22 votes for other individuals after some who voted for Jordan on Tuesday switched their vote to someone else in the second round, such as Reps. Vern Buchanan (R-FL) and Drew Ferguson (R-GA).
The Chair announced the results:@RepJeffries– 212@Jim_Jordan– 199@SteveScalise- 7@SpeakerMcCarthy- 5@LeeMZeldin- 3@RepMikeGarcia – 1
— House Press Gallery (@HouseDailyPress) October 18, 2023
Miller (MI) – 1 @GOPMajorityWhip - 1@SpeakerBoehner - 1@RepWesterman – 1@RepDonaldsPress – 1@RepKayGranger – 1
With no majority cast in…
These are the House Republicans who voted for someone other than Jordan:
- Rep. Bacon voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy
- Rep. Buchanan voted for Rep. Byron Donalds
- Rep. Buck voted for Rep. Tom Emmer
- Rep. Chavez-DeRemer voted for McCarthy
- Rep. D’Esposito voted for former Rep. Lee Zeldin
- Rep. Diaz Balart voted for Rep. Steve Scalise
- Rep. Ellzey voted for Rep. Mike Garcia
- Rep. Ferguson voted for Scalise
- Rep. Garbarino voted for Zeldin
- Rep. Gimenez voted for McCarthy
- Rep. Gonzalez voted for Scalise
- Rep. Granger voted for Scalise
- Rep. James voted for former Rep. Candice Miller
- Rep. Kelly voted for former Speaker John Boehner
- Rep. Kiggans voted for McCarthy
- Rep. LaLota voted for Zeldin
- Rep. Lawler voted for McCarthy
- Rep. Miller-Meeks voted for Rep. Kay Granger
- Rep. Rutherford voted for Scalise
- Rep. Simpson voted for Scalise
- Rep. Stauber voted for Rep. Bruce Westerman
- Rep. Womack voted for Scalise
Following the vote, the House again recessed subject to the call of the chair rather than proceeding into another attempt to elect a speaker.
With Jordan losing ground in the second round, House Republicans seemingly need to either start wheeling and dealing to figure out what it will take to get the holdouts to support Jordan — but cautiously, as one of the concessions McCarthy made during his successful speaker bid regarding the threshold to bring a motion to vacate the chair ended up being his downfall — or regroup around another leader who can win the support necessary to be elected speaker.