Jim Jordan Beats Scalise 106-73 to Lead House Republicans Into the Minority
House Republicans have elected Jim Jordan to lead their diminished conference in the next Congress, choosing the Ohio conservative over outgoing Majority Leader Steve Scalise by 106 votes to 73 in a closed-door ballot on Tuesday.
The Hill reported that Jordan won the secret ballot in the Capitol Visitor Center, handing the party’s top post in the minority to a man who spent two decades antagonising its leaders before joining them. He will take over as minority leader when the 120th Congress convenes on 3 January 2027, succeeding Speaker Mike Johnson, who announced last week that he would step aside from House Republican leadership after the party’s midterm defeat.
A vote shaped by anger at the midterm defeat
The contest was decided one week after Democrats swept to control of the House, flipping more than 40 Republican seats in a midterm rout that left the party facing a Democratic majority of roughly 260 seats. Democrats are also projected to win the Senate, ending the Republican governing trifecta in Washington.
Much of the anger inside the conference was aimed at the leadership that oversaw the defeat. Johnson, who is stepping down from the leadership ranks at the end of the term, absorbed much of it, but Scalise and the party whip, Tom Emmer of Minnesota, also became targets of a “clean house” mood among restive members.
Jordan, a 20-year House veteran, presented himself as a fresh face in leadership and a fighter ready to take on the incoming Democratic majority and its expected Speaker, Hakeem Jeffries of New York. He had spent months on the campaign trail stumping for Republican candidates, work that appears to have paid off in a vote influenced heavily by party newcomers after a wave of Republican retirements.
From Freedom Caucus insurgent to party leader
Jordan, 62, represents Ohio’s fourth congressional district and is in his tenth term. He chairs the powerful House Judiciary Committee, a post he has held throughout the 119th Congress, and previously led the House Oversight Committee.
He is a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus, one of the most conservative blocs in the chamber, and served as its first chairman. The group built its brand on a willingness to attack its own party leaders in pursuit of smaller government, and under Jordan it clashed repeatedly with then-Speaker John Boehner, a fellow Ohio Republican, until Boehner resigned from Congress in 2015.
More recently, Jordan has moved closer to the party establishment and risen through more conventional channels. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who has long feuded with Scalise, lobbied on Jordan’s behalf.
President Donald Trump stayed out of the race, NPR reported, although in 2023 he endorsed Jordan for Speaker. More than 70 per cent of the incoming conference was elected after Mr Trump won his first term, according to a former McCarthy aide cited by NPR, giving the president considerable influence over its direction even without an endorsement.
A rematch of the 2023 Speaker fight
The battle for minority leader was a re-run of the contest for Speaker in 2023, after McCarthy was forced aside. Scalise initially won his party’s nomination for Speaker that year, beating Jordan in a secret ballot, but withdrew when it became clear he lacked the 218 votes needed to win the gavel on the House floor. Jordan was then chosen as the party’s nominee, but repeatedly fell short on the House floor. Johnson ultimately stepped in to fill the void.
Jordan’s pitch this time was blunt. In a letter to colleagues last week, he wrote that Republicans had for too long “operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us”.
“This will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democratic majority,” he wrote, adding that he is “battle-tested on the oversight front” and “know[s] the Democrats’ playbook”.
“I know what it will take to lead our Conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats’ tactics,” he wrote. “We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting.”
What comes next
Jordan will have his work cut out. Democrats are vowing exhaustive investigations into Mr Trump, his family and his administration, making Jordan the first line of defence for his ally in the White House. Jeffries, meanwhile, is widely expected to take the Speaker’s gavel on 3 January, which would make him the first Black member to hold the office.
For now, Johnson remains Speaker until the new Congress convenes, and the House continues under Republican control for the remainder of the lame-duck session. Tuesday’s vote answered the first question facing the party after its defeat: who leads it into opposition. The harder question — how Republicans rebuild after losing both chambers — will take far longer.
