Strike One! Jim Jordan fails first attempt to get the Speakership

Gage Skidmore | Flickr.com

Republican Congressman and Trump loyalist Jim Jordan’s first attempt to secure the House Speakership failed when 20 of his GOP colleagues voted against him.

This was a setback for Jordan, who spent considerable effort over the weekend and on Monday to whip votes and reduce the number of 55 Republicans who voted against him during a secret, closed door ballot last Thursday.

Jordan’s efforts—thanks to Donald Trump’s endorsement and external pressure from popular Fox propagandist Sean Hannity—had been disturbingly successful, flipping multiple critics who’d publicly committed to voting against him previously.

But despite the fact that recent reporting had assured the public that Jordan had reduced the double-digit gap to a single-digit one, 20 Republicans voted against him when the vote came to the House floor.

Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries received all of his caucus’s 212 votes compared to Jordan’s 200.

Jordan is an extreme figure, even among today’s Republicans: referred to as a “legislative terrorist” by former Republican Speaker John Boehner, he was a key figure in Trump’s schemes to steal the 2020 election from President Biden, the author of a bill which would federally ban abortions without exception, and a peddler of conspiracy theories and culture war talking points despite being the least effective sitting Congressman.

At the time of writing, Jordan has publicly vowed at least one more floor vote for the Speakership today, though reporting suggests he will lose more votes in the second round than he did the first.