by Nicholas Ballasy
Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, failed in the second round of voting in the House speaker election on the House floor Wednesday.
Jordan did not have the support of 20 Republicans on Tuesday and lost the speakership by 17 votes.
He lost 22 Republican votes on Wednesday, the official tally showed.
The House is now in recess.
There were 433 members in the chamber on Wednesday so Jordan would need a simple majority of 217 to win.
Jordan and his allies have continued their outreach to the GOP holdouts but it appears he still doesn’t have enough votes to clinch the speakership.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich endorsed a proposal to elevate Rep. Patrick McHenry, R-N.C. from speaker pro tempore to speaker of the House temporary.
On the social media platform X, former House Speaker John Boehner replied to Gingrich, saying he agreed with that idea.
The proposal was previously floated inside the House GOP conference as a possibility but appears to be gaining more steam about Gingrich and Boehner’s endorsement.
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Nicholas Ballasy has been breaking news for more than a decade in the nation’s capital and questioning political leaders about the most pressing issues facing the nation.
Photo “Jim Jordan” by Gage Skidmore. CC BY-SA 2.0.
