Jim Jordan picked as new minority leader for House GOP - Roll Call

House Republicans on Tuesday opted for a new face atop their ranks, electing Rep. Jim Jordan as the incoming minority leader for the 120th Congress after Republicans suffered massive losses in last week’s midterm elections.

The Ohio Republican defeated outgoing Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., in a closed-door, secret-ballot election. The final tally was 106-73.

“Over the next two years, House Republicans will fight for American families. Democrats offer more government. We will offer more freedom,” Jordan said after the hourslong process.

The two had been working the phones before making their pitches during a candidates forum in the Capitol Visitor Center’s auditorium on Tuesday morning. Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., announced last week he would not seek a leadership post in the new Congress, which will be seated on Jan. 3.

“Obviously Jim and I know each other, but I’ve got a proven record of how to bring people together,” Scalise said ahead of the vote, trying to play up his experience, including more than a decade on the leadership team that included a stint as whip.

As House Republicans trickled out of the candidates’ forum for breaks or to take phone calls, one member, granted anonymity to discuss a private session, said Scalise and Jordan “both have strong points, but they both have flaws.” Each made an unsuccessful bid for speaker in 2023 after the ouster of Kevin McCarthy, before the gavel ultimately went to Johnson. 

Declining to reveal which would get his vote, the member said: “I won’t talk about a secret vote, but I know who I think is best to lead us.” 

The incoming minority conference also selected other leaders on Tuesday.

Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota held off a challenge from Texas Rep. August Pfluger to become minority whip in January, despite some grumbling about how tight votes were handled on the floor this year.

“We’ve got to retool our whip operation,” Texas Rep. Nathaniel Moran said Tuesday morning, pointing to “the number of times we were held up by either discharge petitions or failed rule votes.”

“Those were things that should not have happened in the majority,” said Moran as he publicly backed Pfluger for whip. 

But Emmer projected confidence after his whip win, comparing the moment to when Republicans were down and out after their losses in 2018 only to rebound a few years later. 

“To our colleagues on the left, enjoy this honeymoon phase, because come Jan. 3, 2027, you will regret ever putting your name on a ballot,” he said at a news conference, adding that Republicans under his watch would expose the “empty promises” that Democrats made to voters and push back on what he called their “radical” agenda.

In the day’s only three-way race, conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan defeated Reps. Erin Houchin of Indiana and Greg Steube of Florida to keep her spot.

“We had a spirited leadership election. There were important conversations about the future of our conference, and I listened,” McClain said at the news conference. 

In the race to lead House Republicans’ campaign arm, Rep. Brian Jack of Georgia defeated Rep. Rudy Yakym of Indiana, seen as an up-and-coming Ways and Means Committee member. That means Jack will take on a huge share of the uphill task of selecting candidates and raising funds for the 2028 cycle as he helms the National Republican Congressional Committee.

But most of the attention heading into Tuesday’s closed-door proceedings was on the minority leader race. 

Johnson, the outgoing speaker, declined to endorse a candidate but had encouraging words for Jordan after his win. “He’s going to do an excellent job. He’s a good, trusted friend and brother,” he said.

Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., said it was a “tough choice for the conference to make,” but he wasn’t disappointed in the pick. “He was an exceptionally capable chairman of both Oversight and Judiciary. He’s excellent in an interview,” Cole said of Jordan. “He’s got boundless energy and determination.” 

Jordan’s victory means he will form a political and legal tag team with newly installed White House Chief of Staff Stephen Miller in pushing back on a number of investigations House Democrats have planned for President Donald Trump, some of his second-term administration officials and his business-minded family members.

Democrats will have more than 250 seats in the chamber, with a number of races still uncalled. Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, expected to become the next House speaker, told reporters last week he predicts Democrats will have at least 255 seats when all the ballots have been counted and verification processes have played out.

“It’s a historic majority in the 21st century,” Jeffries told reporters in Washington, D.C., the day after the midterms. “The American people have chosen the economy over extremism. The American people have chosen hope over hatred. The American people have chosen common sense over corruption, chaos and cruelty. The American people have chosen House Democrats because they want to see a dramatic change in direction.”

Political analysts have predicted an internal battle within the GOP for the direction the party takes over the next two years — and after Trump leaves office in January 2029.

The Institute for Legislative Analysis, a nonprofit organization that advocates to shrink the size and influence of the government, released a vote study assessment on Monday. Its calculations led ILA to endorse Emmer and three fresh faces: Jordan, Steube and Jack.

“It’s clear many Republican voters feel their representatives in Washington aren’t representing them,” Ryan McGowan, the institute’s CEO, said in a statement. “It will be interesting to see whether House Republicans respond by choosing leaders … whose voting records are much more closely aligned with the party’s conservative base.”

Several GOP sources late last week, granted anonymity to be candid, said they were expecting a close outcome between Scalise and Jordan, adding Emmer was working the phones hard to remain whip. One said having either Scalise or Jordan atop the conference, with the expectation of Emmer staying on as whip, “won’t be much of a change at the top.” 

The new leadership team will take over Jan. 3, when Democrats are expected to, in part, use their large majority to target all things Trump 2.0. The same GOP source said the majority party will “inevitably be pursuing impeachment by August recess despite their disciplined statements to the media pre-election.”

Trump replied in the affirmative when a “60 Minutes” correspondent asked him in an interview that aired Sunday night if he could work with Democrats, should they also be aggressively investigating his team.

“Well, I did it for four years,” the president said of his first term. “They impeached me twice. And there are those that say that worked out to my advantage.”

Nina Heller, Michael Macagnone and Samantha Freeman contributed to this report.