House Speaker race heats up: Jordan and Scalise jockeying for power

The two declared candidates for Speaker of the House make their final pitches for the post on Tuesday, but face a roadblock as allies of Kevin McCarthy plot a possible comeback. McCarthy’s supporters are expected to nominate him again for Speaker, despite the fact that the ousted House leader has not formally put his name forward. That could delay plans for a vote, with some loyalists backing McCarthy even though he will not have the support of 217 MPs – a majority in the lower house.

The path for either Representative Jim Jordan, who chairs the powerful Judiciary Committee, or the number two House Republican, Majority Leader Steve Scalise, to win a majority is also unclear. Without an elected Speaker, the lower house cannot move on to other legislative priorities — namely passing spending legislation to avert a government shutdown next month and helping to replenish Israel’s defense capabilities amid attacks by Hamas . Jordan and Scalise will address their colleagues at a candidate forum Tuesday afternoon before an internal vote Wednesday morning.

Republicans must first vote at their convention on a speaker nominee. Currently only a simple majority is required to become the GOP nominee. But then this candidate must be elected on the floor of the Parliament. To win a majority on the House floor, Republicans can only afford four defectors, provided all Democrats vote against their nominee. DailyMail.com has learned that some Scalise supporters believe throwing McCarthy into the race is a tactic designed to get McCarthy’s former deputy out of the job.

McCarthy loyalists are more likely to support Scalise than the conservative Jordan. If McCarthy is in the race to split the vote between himself and Scalise, Jordan may come out on top with a majority of the vote — at least in the context of the Republican conference. Then it could still have trouble reaching 217 on the House floor. The tension between McCarthy and Scalise is an open secret in Washington. He first boiled over publicly when conservatives were angered by McCarthy’s deal with Joe Biden on the debt ceiling.

Instead of involving Scalise in the debt ceiling discussions, McCarthy relied on his close friends, Rep. Garrett Graves, R-La., and Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry, RN.C., to negotiate with White House. McCarthy could believe he has a real path to getting his old job back. The former speaker refused to rule out a comeback as he held a press conference and made the rounds of television appearances on Monday. He repeatedly said it would depend on the conference whether he would be reinstated as speaker during a news conference where he touted his foreign policy experience amid the Israel-Hamas conflict.

“This is a decision for the conference. I will allow the convention to make any decision,” he told reporters of a possible speech nomination. “Whether I am the speaker or not, I am a member of this body. “Look, whatever the convention wants, I’ll do it,” he told radio host Hugh Hewitt on Monday morning. “There are a lot of people who believe that Kevin McCarthy is the right person to lead us,” GOP Rep. Mike Lawler of New York told reporters Monday.

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