America's Next Top Speaker
At the Races in the GOP Conference
A man walks into the House Republican Speaker’s conference. He sobs.
Fifteen ballots, two hundred and sixty-nine days. That’s how Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) will be remembered, a footnote of history who served just over two weeks for every ballot it took to finally get him elected as the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He succeeded Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), to this position and will be contrasted harshly against her in years to come. She was known for her incredible record as Speaker, never losing a vote once it got to the floor and wielding an iron grip over the Speaker’s gavel. Compare this with McCarthy, and in under nine months he lost a number of votes on Appropriations bills and became the first ever person to be removed as Speaker of the House by a motion to vacate. A motion called by none other than the Florida Representative, possible sex trafficker and man McCarthy made a great deal of his concessions to back in January - Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL).
It was obvious to anyone watching the Speaker vote back in January that McCarthy’s leadership was predicated on a house of cards, and that at least five-percent of his caucus had their knives drawn, ready to pounce whenever he made the smallest of slips. This time has come, and it is now necessary for the House GOP caucus to reconvene to propose a new Speaker, for the second time in a year. This article will look at the handful of names in the ring already plus those on the edges of the ring to assess who is most likely to succeed McCarthy. Hopefully not to continue his legacy, but to usher in some sense of sanity for the rest of the legislative period of the 118th Congress.
Candidate Circus
As of writing, there are three candidates with pledged supporters, one of whom will most likely end up trying their hand at leading the House through to January 2025 - although the trigger-happy nature of the House Freedom Caucus means that this is anything but assured. In no particular order, these candidates are House Majority Leader Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA), Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) and Former President Donald Trump. As of the time of writing, Trump has stated he won’t be running, so he won’t be discussed in this article, however I will also talk about Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) as a potential fringe candidate with a claim to the Speakership.
It is likely that only Jordan and Scalise will face the GOP conference, with Bacon being a possible contingency candidate who I will speak about later. Jordan and Scalise have a fairly similar appeal, and base, so their battle may end up coming down to perception. The question for us to answer today is who has the broadest base of support, and the smallest amount of baggage as it is one thing for one of these men to win a majority of the GOP conference, but it is an entirely different beast to win almost all of their votes when it comes to the House. Need I remind you that Kevin McCarthy received 85% of the GOP conference vote back in December, but was only elected after fifteen rounds on the House floor. With this in mind, I will be ranking these candidates in order of most likely to win a vote on the House floor, not just a majority of GOP congressmen.
Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH)
Ohio Representative Jim Jordan is a firebrand in Conservative politics. An architect of the 2013 Government shutdown, he was branded as a “legislative terrorist,” by then Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), and cast as someone who just wanted to see the world burn. It’s almost prophetic that he might become the next Speaker of the House.
For many Americans, their first exposure to the Ohioan hardliner was in January 2023 when, on the second and third ballots for Speaker of the House, he received all the votes from the Republican rebels opposed to McCarthy - peaking at twenty in round three. This position was leveraged by Jordan and the Freedom Caucus to install the Ohioan as Chair of the House Judiciary Committee as part of negotiations to allow McCarthy to become Speaker. His ability to fail upwards may also be seen as a reward for his role in shielding former President Trump from the January 6th Committee, and helping to create the chaos seen on that day.
Before the January Speaker saga, Jordan had also built up somewhat of a resume with the far right by staging a sit-in to slow the impeachment process of former President Trump, and refusing to co-operate with the inquiry into the January 6th insurrection in 2022. He is also the founding father of the House Freedom Caucus, and current vice-chair to Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA), putting him in de facto control of a fifth of the House GOP caucus, whose members are the furthest right in the House and most difficult to control. On top of this he has received the coveted, and full throated, support from none other than former President Trump, winning the endorsements of all bar one of the handful of Representatives who backed the former President to become the next Speaker.
It is this broad base of support that leads me to think that Jim Jordan is the most likely member to succeed McCarthy as Speaker of the House. He is currently publicly supported by almost fifty members of the GOP conference, around the same number as Rep. Scalise and above any other prospective competitors. Most importantly, he has the presumed support of most of the Freedom Caucus, a group whose votes are numerically important but are more significant due to the history of their members and their capacity to disrupt the 118th Congress. These members are the ones who slowed the Speaker nomination process in January, and who helped to bring McCarthy down prematurely this Autumn, and will potentially cause issues for someone like Majority Leader Scalise should he make it to a House vote next week. They have no issue with disrupting the norms and traditions of the House, and will do anything they can to get their way or bring down any candidate who they see as moderate. Therefore, it Jordan can get them in line, then he will avoid falling foul to them on the House floor and is probably the only candidate who I am confident would get elected on the first ballot.
Jordan does, however, have weaknesses with some moderate members of the Republican caucus due to his history of controversial remarks and right wing populism. However, these members, such as Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry (R-NC) are much less likely to cause a problem once a Speaker is nominated to the House floor. They may attempt to extract some concessions on rules, and committee placements in private, but they aren’t likely to cause a public scene due to their commitment to the party and desire to be seen as the “adults in the room.” It is for this reason, and Jordan’s appeal to the far right, that I currently believe he is the most likely member to be elected Speaker.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA)
Current second in command, Rep. Steve Scalise has been through a lot in Congress. He was shot by an anti-Trump extremist in 2017, has been in office since 2008, and was diagnosed with blood cancer this summer. Now he is determined to make his life even worse by running for Speaker of the House - hoping to take the poisoned chalice straight from his former boss’ hand. But what are his odds? To understand why this article places Scalise below Jordan in likeliness to become the next Speaker, I will dip briefly into his personal history, and the issues he may face with far right Republicans in the House.
It’s important firstly to mention that there are very few policy differences between Scalise, Jordan. Both of these men are broadly aligned politically, and are on the right of things in the Republican conference. Perhaps the only significant policy difference between them is that Scalise has vocalised his support for continued funding to Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression - an issue which has become divisive inside the GOP. But with that aside, the main difference between Scalise and his opponents is optics, and optics matter a whole lot for the Speaker of the House.
In their official announcements that they were running for Speaker there was a big tone difference between Jordan and Scalise, with the former setting himself up as a fighter, and the candidate to combat “far left extremists” in the House whereas the latter’s announcement centred on unity, legislative ability and experience. Looking at this from a distance, you can interpret that Jordan is running to lead the Republicans, whereas Scalise is pitching himself as the candidate who could lead the House and all it’s contingent parts. This difference is important to swing/independent voters who, purely based on vibe and general demeanour will likely find Speaker Scalise a much more appetising option than Speaker Jordan, because Scalise has been less open about leaning into the far right elements of his caucus. This is in spite of his publicly acknowledged ties to white supremacist groups, and even referring to himself in 2014 as “like David Duke without the baggage.” Nevertheless, it is safe to assume that Speaker Scalise would be more popular than Jordan, and a safer pick for Republicans - which is probably why he’s currently trailing the Ohioan hard liner.
One thing you can be sure of is that neither Jordan nor Scalise will be able to rely on crossover votes from Democrats should any of the Republican conference turn against them on the House floor - and this is where I believe Scalise could be weaker than Jordan and may falter in a similar way to McCarthy. It is the furthest right, most reactionary, elements of the party who brought McCarthy down, and what’s to say that they are at peace with Scalise? A politician who has been in House leadership for nearly a decade and is far from being an outsider. Critically, McCarthy’s woes began with defence spending bills being rejected by the freedom caucus due to their continued funding to Ukraine, and while Matt Gaetz has said that Scalise’s support for Ukraine isn’t a dealbreaker, what’s to say that those such as Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) or Byron Donalds (R-FL) wouldn’t use this to vote Scalise down on the House floor. This element of risk which comes with Scalise may well also be enough to cost him the votes of the greatly important middle ground in the GOP conference, a group of party loyalists, and traditional conservatives who don’t want a repeat of January’s Speaker fiasco. They certainly like Scalise more than they like Jordan, but they don’t want to be at the centre of yet another national embarrassment.
For these reasons, I think Scalise still has a good shot at the Speaker’s gavel, but it is undermined by the risk party insiders would have to take in supporting him. I suspect that a majority of the GOP conference would rather see Scalise as Speaker than Jordan, but right now it seems more likely that they will fall in line behind Jordan to avoid yet another very public humiliation in Congress.
Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE)
Our final candidate in this second Speaker’s race of the year comes out of left field, and his name is Don Bacon. I don’t believe that he has more than a >5% chance of becoming speaker, but it’s a thought that should be entertained thanks to the volatile nature of the house, and the possibility of a bipartisan Speaker being elected.
Rep. Bacon has a long history of bipartisan support, whether it comes from winning Democratic votes in his Omaha based congressional district, or taking a pivotal role in the Problem Solvers Caucus - Bacon attempts to cross the aisle more than most of his Republican colleagues. This includes in the aftermath of McCarthy’s ouster, where Bacon suggested that a bipartisan solution should be considered, lamenting that the House let, “eight, crazy people drive [McCarthy] out.”
Despite all this, the path to electing Speaker Bacon requires a lot of stars to align and would completely shake the house up.
The argument for Speaker Bacon is fairly straightforward. The House is nearly tied with 221 Republicans against 212 Democrats, around five to ten per-cent of the Republican caucus wish to see the world burn, and any candidate solely supported by Republicans may have the rug pulled out of them at any moment. Therefore, instead of relying on inconsistent support from far-right GOP representatives attempting to make a name for themselves, a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans could come together and nominate Bacon. This isn’t entirely based in fantasy, as Bacon has been one of the most vocal critics of the rules package agreed to by McCarthy and the far right, making clear that he believes House leadership has been compromised. For a bipartisan effort to elect Bacon to succeed, various concessions would be given to both parties, and the far right flank of the House would be reduced to a rabble, allowed to return to their safe space on the outskirts of Congress.
This reality will likely elude us, that is unless we see a repeat of January 2023, where the House is gridlocked thanks to elements of the far right digging their heels in likely against potential Speaker nominee, Steve Scalise. It’s fair to say that Scalise lacks the sticking power that McCarthy has, as the former Speaker saw the Speaker’s gavel as something he deserved, whereas Scalise likely isn’t attached to in the same way, especially as he continues to battle blood cancer. It is only in the timeline where Scalise buckles under pressure and can’t bring himself to battle a despondent right flank that a number of his supporters, and some centre-leaning Democrats, could band together and draft Don Bacon. It would be a repudiation of the Freedom Caucus along with other extreme elements in the GOP and may well be a watershed moment for the modern Republican Party in an era where it has been torn apart between a traditional flank and it’s Trumpian counterpart.
All of this is an elaborate set of mental gymnastics to dream of a world where compromise exists, and 2016 didn’t rip the political system apart in ways we still can’t comprehend. The most likely Speaker is Jim Jordan, and a fantastical series of events would have to occur to make Speaker Bacon a reality.
Wrapping up
In some ways, this article could be condensed into saying, “Jim Jordan probably wins, Scalise might, and Don Bacon would be fun,” but where’s the analysis in that? When the GOP conference convenes on Tuesday we will get a look at the internal conflicts going on inside the Grand Old Party, and a better idea of how things will flesh out on the House floor. The optics of Speaker Scalise trump those of Speaker Jordan, but the Trump effect has rallied around the latter, and it is unclear that Scalise has enough allies to overcome this. There is also a risk in the GOP conference supporting Scalise, as the unpredictable right flank could choose to run it back to January and continue to sink him on the House floor should they not extract the concessions they desire.
If you’re particularly inclined, I suggest you check back on this article after Tuesday and shout at me about how either wrong or right I was. You also all have to buy a subscription if I end up being right about Speaker Bacon.
Good analysis. Jim Jordan scares the heck out of me, Scalise less so. Bacon is my choice, given that he works across the aisle. And we need more bipartisanship.
A girl can dream, can’t she?
Interesting take on the chaos