House Republicans on Tuesday nominated Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota to be the next speaker, but his candidacy quickly ran into trouble as dozens of right-wingers refused to back him, forcing him to step down just hours after being nominated.
Republicans are now trying to choose a fourth nominee. As of Tuesday evening, there are six candidates vying for the nomination: Byron Donalds of Florida, Chuck Fleischmann of Tenneseee, Mark Green of Tennessee, Kevin Hern of Oklahoma, Mike Johnson of Louisiana and Roger Williams of Texas.
On Tuesday morning, Emmer won support from a majority of the House Republican conference in the last of five rounds of secret ballots, beating Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana 117 to 97. Seven other Republicans who had declared their candidacy dropped out of the process at various points before the final vote.
Emmer was the third nominee for speaker since a small group of far-right Republicans triggered a vote to remove Kevin McCarthy from the leadership position three weeks ago. The first nominee, Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, withdrew after he was unable to clear the hurdle of 217 votes within the Republican conference, the number needed to win a simple majority in the House. The second nominee, Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, was removed from his position as speaker-designee following three failed votes on the House floor.
The House has been essentially leaderless since McCarthy was removed from the speakership, with Rep. Patrick McHenry of North Carolina serving as an acting speaker with limited powers.
Tough road to travel: Although he gained enough support to win the nomination, Emmer couldn’t convince enough Republicans to back him to win a vote on the floor of the House. Emmer could afford to lose just four Republican votes, and at least 26 GOP lawmakers said they would not vote for him. “A gigantic pool of nos,” as Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman put it.
One major problem for Emmer was that he voted to certify the 2020 election — an unforgivable sin among supporters of former president Donald Trump, who is still the most popular figure in the Republican Party and who continues to insist without evidence that the last presidential election was “rigged,” unfairly denying him reelection.
Emmer also supported the Respect for Marriage Act in 2022, which requires the federal government to recognize the validity of same-sex and interracial civil marriages, and he voted in favor of McCarthy’s budget deal with Democrats earlier this year, both of which are problematic for many of the ultraconservatives.
Emmer reportedly reached out to Trump for support in the speaker race, but Trump made it clear that he wants someone else in the position. “I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors. RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them,” Trump said on social media Tuesday. “He fought me all the way, and actually spent more time defending Ilhan Omar, than he did me,” Trump continued. “Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!”
A last-ditch effort: Emmer met with Republican holdouts Tuesday afternoon in an attempt to change some minds and increase his base of support. But opposition to Emmer among lawmakers on the right was firm. “I’m a conservative. I came to Washington to fight for conservative values,” Rep. Jim Banks of Indiana told CNN’s Manu Raju. “I can't go along with putting one of the most moderate members of the entire Republican conference in the speaker's chair.”
The bottom line: Emmer’s shockingly rapid fall as speaker nominee raises questions about who, if anyone, can win the support of 217 Republicans in the House. Expect more chaos ahead as Republicans attempt to find a speaker they can actually support. “It’s a huge setback,” GOP Rep. Lance Gooden told CNN, “but we’ve become so accustomed to setbacks that one setback doesn’t seem worse than another.”
