Congress
Inside Jim Jordan’s quiet preparations for a GOP leadership void
Jim Jordan has spent much of the past year out of the House GOP spotlight. Don’t expect that to last.
The Ohio Republican rose to prominence as a headline-grabbing conservative firebrand, then saw that reputation work against him when he made a failed bid for the speakership in 2023. Since then he has been supporting President Donald Trump as chair of the House Judiciary Committee and otherwise staying out of Speaker Mike Johnson’s way.
But now as frustrations with Johnson’s leadership rise inside the House GOP, and expectations grow that the Republican majority’s days might be numbered, speculation is brewing that the 62-year-old former wrestling star is preparing another push for the top leadership ranks.
“I’ve seen a concerted effort now for him to work with everybody and to travel the country,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), a fellow Judiciary member. Should Jordan make another run, he said, “I think his base of appeal will be stronger and bigger.”
The open chatter that has erupted around Jordan and other possible contenders for the top House GOP spot — including current No. 2 leader Steve Scalise and No. 3 leader Tom Emmer — has been conspicuous, especially considering there is no vacancy to fill. Johnson insists he will retain the House majority in the November midterms and continue as speaker.
But other House Republicans believe that is growing more unlikely given the political headwinds they face and the general belief Johnson would step down from leadership rather than continue as minority leader. So they have been taking notice of the quiet moves already being made by possible candidates to build support among the rank-and-file.
And while Jordan has remained on the sidelines of recent high-profile intra-GOP feuds, he’s spent plenty of time helping vulnerable members on the campaign trail and, more recently, helping Trump wrangle potential conservative defectors on a key upcoming spy-powers vote.
Asked about mounting another run should Johnson step down after November, Jordan declined to rule it out in an interview.
“I am totally focused on keeping the majority, which I think we’re going to do,” he said.
The last time Jordan took a shot at the speakership was after then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy was forced out of the position in 2023. Jordan won a plurality of votes on several secret internal ballots but failed to reach the necessary 218 votes. Dozens of more moderate members opposed his bid, most believing he was simply too combative to govern effectively.
But things could be different in November. For one, in a race for minority leader, Jordan would only need to win over a majority of House Republicans — not a majority of the entire chamber.
And while someone with a reputation as a “legislative terrorist” — as former Speaker John Boehner once called Jordan — might not make for a great speaker in the eyes of some members, leading a House minority can require a more confrontational approach.
One Republican lawmaker granted anonymity to speak candidly noted that a bad midterm showing could actually work to Jordan’s advantage by culling some of his moderate opposition.
“His base is in rock-hard GOP districts,” the member said. “The worse the night the fewer the number of ‘never Jordans’ who come to vote.”
But that member was among several who recognized that Jordan has also taken pains in the two-and-a-half years since he lost to build support in new corners of the House GOP: “He is working every day to lay the groundwork.”
Republicans have asked Jordan to come to their districts and help with both big- and small-dollar donations, one person familiar with the outreach said. Jordan in the interview noted he was about to head to California to campaign with Rep. Vince Fong — a protege of McCarthy’s who is hardly considered a conservative rabble-rouser.
“He’s definitely broadened his circle and his approach and his appeal,” said a swing-district GOP lawmaker, who like the others was granted anonymity to comment on a leadership race that has yet to actually materialize.
Should Johnson step down, the member said, Jordan could be an acceptable successor: “I’m not against it.”
Among Jordan’s admirers is McCarthy himself, who soundly beat Jordan in the last House GOP election for a minority leader in 2018. The two men then formed an alliance that persisted even after a small group of conservative hard-liners tried to block McCarthy from the speakership. When the group rallied behind Jordan as an alternative, Jordan rejected the idea and instead gave a nominating speech for McCarthy.
In an interview, the former speaker called Jordan one of the party’s “best chairmen” and said he “would have done an excellent job” with the gavel had he been elected in 2023.
“Some people would go and quit if they didn’t win,” McCarthy said. “I watched him go help and elect people who were not good to him, who he had every reason to try to go and defeat then but he didn’t.”
Jordan denied he’s made any change in strategy. “I’ve always helped our colleagues,” he said, when asked if he’d stepped up his campaign trail work in anticipation of a leadership run.
What’s harder to deny is that Jordan has taken a much lower-key approach to internal House politics since Trump — a longtime ally — returned to the White House last year. That change has been on display during the recent fight over Department of Homeland Security funding.
After the Senate passed a bill last month that left out key immigration enforcement agencies, Jordan did not immediately join Johnson and other House leaders in trashing the bill, instead noting the upsides of the plan: Democrats didn’t succeed in hamstringing enforcement tactics, and Republicans would have their own opportunity to pass a party-line bill delivering the funding.
It ended up being a canny approach after Johnson backed down last week and agreed to advance the Senate-passed measure as the only workable alternative. In a nod to the conservative uproar, Jordan conceded the two-track approach set a bad precedent in a Wednesday radio interview. But his comments were only lightly critical at a moment when many members were furious that Johnson had made a U-turn on the bill.
“So the House said no to it,” he said. “All us Republicans voted against what the Senate had sent.”
Jordan is playing an even more crucial role to ease through the quick reauthorization of a key surveillance program ahead of an April 20 deadline at the behest of the White House. That’s a flip from two years ago, when Jordan opposed renewing the program and eyed a push for “real reform” to protect Americans from warrantless spying in 2026.
Inside a closed-door House GOP meeting last month, Jordan stood alongside top Republican leaders and briefed members on why they should support a straight extension. That created friction with some of his traditional hard-liner allies, some of whom stood up and pointed out Jordan’s 180, according to two members granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
“The old Jim Jordan wouldn’t have done this,” one of the members said. “It’s clear that he sold out in order to keep chairmanship or to move up in leadership.”
Jordan said in an interview he has not changed his position because the program, known as Section 702, is “fundamentally different because of the reforms we all worked on and got in place” in prior renewals.
“So for a short-term extension, while we’re in the middle of a military conflict in Iran, that the commander in chief thinks makes sense for the short term, I think that’s fine,” he said.
Jordan’s spy-powers stance has surprised even Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Judiciary Democrat. Raskin opposes renewing the 702 program without new guardrails, but he credited his counterpart as an “able and effective political actor” inside the GOP who has his pulse on the party agenda.
“I don’t know whether he has traveled more towards the center of the Republican conference or the Republican conference has traveled more towards Jim Jordan,” Raskin said. “But in any event, it feels like he’s pretty close to the center of gravity right now.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
DALLAS — Republicans used their midterm convention this week to ask voters to preserve their congressional majorities and let them “finish the job.”
But with few consensus legislative goals, it’s far from clear what job they want to finish.
The two-day convention here centered on painting Democrats as an increasingly socialist party that American voters cannot trust with power while highlighting the GOP’s one major victory on Capitol Hill under President Donald Trump’s second term: the year-old tax-cut package known as the “big, beautiful bill.”
In contrast, there was little talk from the podium of what Republicans might seek to pass with a continued trifecta, and members interviewed on the sidelines shared differing visions of what specific legislation the GOP should pursue in the last two years of Trump’s presidency.
The one concrete proposal on offer — Trump’s promise Wednesday of a $5,000 “dividend” for every American adult — blindsided GOP congressional leaders and generated immediate internal dissension.
Asked about his party’s legislative plans, Rep. Chuck Fleischmann of Tennessee said Republicans would “certainly continue the agenda that we’ve done and that we fulfill to the American people.”
“Accentuate all the positives, minimize all the negatives,” said Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania, responding to the same question. He added he would like to see “more domestic energy production” and tackling fraud in government programs.
Several others said they want to build on last year’s GOP megabill, pursuing more tax cuts and, echoing Meuser, eliminating wasteful spending in government. Some said they hoped to pursue new health care and immigration policies.
“We’ll continue to work with President Trump, making sure the border stays secure,” Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan of Ohio said in an interview. “I think we can do more on the tax code, dealing with keeping taxes low for families. Certainly … things cost too much for families. We understand it now.”
Specifics, however, were scarce.
Fleischmann said Republicans have “a good roadmap in place,” but when pressed on what that roadmap entails, he resorted to broad strokes — “to make sure that America stays strong, that defense gets funded, that we make sure that we fulfill our proper domestic obligations.”
Rather than rally around Trump’s promise of $5,000 checks if Republicans are returned to power in Congress, many GOP members — caught by surprise — said they needed more information about the proposal or simply declined to comment. Once mentioned by the president, the proposal was barely mentioned again on the convention stage.
Trump said in a CBS News interview Thursday that he believed he might not need Congress to authorize the dividend checks — a claim some Republicans quickly pushed back on.
The reality is, the narrow House and Senate majorities the GOP now holds have been barely capable of legislating as it is. And while leaders in both chambers play up the possibility of expanding those majorities in November, that would require overcoming historical precedent and many Republicans’ private expectations they will be lucky to hold on to any majority at all.
Both chambers return Monday for what could be a brief pre-election session, with little expectation that serious legislating will get done. House Republicans have sent several partisan bills to the Senate, but they are being blocked by Democratic filibusters. Plans for a new budget reconciliation bill that could skirt Democratic opposition has stalled, meanwhile, due to internal GOP divides.
The lack of action in the Senate has fueled anger from Trump and his loyalists in Congress and in the GOP voter base — much of it trained on Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who has repeatedly said he simply does not have the votes to eliminate the filibuster and enact the stalled bills.
That has not appeased angry conservatives — Thune was booed at the convention Wednesday — and a continued GOP trifecta would almost certainly continue to be marked by interchamber tensions — even with turnover in the party ranks.
“Given the current dynamic, we have got to have a serious come-to-Jesus conversation with Majority Leader Thune,” Rep. Chip Roy of Texas said at the convention, demanding the Senate “tweak the filibuster rules” and “call the question” on key bills.
Even on an issue where there is general agreement among Republicans that something should be done — such as immigration — internal disagreements have kept the party from acting.
Jordan, for instance, said he would like to codify tough border security policies backed by Trump. But some more moderate Republicans are hoping for a more comprehensive bill that also addresses legal immigration programs, such as those allowing for guest agricultural workers and high-skilled labor.
Meuser is among those wanting a broader bill — one, he said, that is “not amnesty, but a truly comprehensive, smart plan for illegal immigration.”
Speaker Mike Johnson did not mention immigration legislation or any other specific agenda items in his remarks to the convention Thursday. He instead outlined the House’s achievements under Trump and said voters need to stay the course.
“We’ve succeeded in so many ways, but it takes more than just 20 months to fix the total disaster that we were handed and to turn the ship of state around,” he said. “We know the job isn’t finished yet, but we are all in this together.”
Echoing many other convention speakers, Johnson focused on the threats posed by Democrats: “The alternative is to turn the reins over right now to the radical Marxists who are planning to dramatically grow the government, raise your taxes, drive costs through the roof, and rob you of your freedom.”
But some worried that message might not be sufficient — especially after Democrats’ 2024 message focused largely on preventing another Trump presidency rather than pointing to affirmative plans to tackle rising prices and other key voter concerns.
Roy is not on the ballot this fall after losing a primary for Texas attorney general, but he is helping to campaign for other Republicans. He, too, said his message is that GOP candidates “need to be able to finish the job” and cited an “enormous amount of good work” — listing as examples the Laken Riley Act, a small-bore immigration bill that passed early in Trump’s second term, and federal spending cuts embedded in the megabill.
As for the rest of the GOP messaging, Roy added, “Right now, I would argue we’re focused a little bit too much on how crazy they are instead of talking about all the great stuff we’ve done.”
House lawmakers are set to vote on the sweeping Russia sanctions bill that senators overwhelmingly voted to approve in August, but now faces a tough test in the House where Democrats fear the bill will give President Donald Trump too much tariff power.
The Senate-passed and White House-backed measure is finally getting consideration from the House, after GOP leaders omitted it from their agenda when lawmakers returned from August recess. Many House Democrats — including Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries — have voiced opposition for fear that it would give Trump expansive and risky new tariff authorities.
House GOP enthusiasm for the measure has also been tepid, after a boost following the sudden death of its champion, Sen. Lindsey Graham, wore off.
The House Rules Committee scheduled a meeting to consider the bill Monday afternoon.
Advocates of the legislation argue the bill would give Trump the tools he needs to pressure Russian leader Vladimir Putin to end the war on Ukraine. The bill would issue mandatory sanctions on Russian leadership and its energy sector — as well as collaborators in Moscow’s defense industry and so-called shadow fleet.
But it would also give Trump the ability to hit top buyers of Russian oil with 100% tariffs, a move that Democrats say is dangerous given the White House’s eagerness to slap tariffs on U.S. friends and foes alike.
“Donald Trump already has ample authority to impose sanctions on the companies, individuals, and vessels propping up a Russian war machine that continues its deadly attacks on Ukraine,” Reps. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) and Richard Neal (D-Mass.) wrote in a joint statement with Democratic Rep. Don Beyer of Virginia and Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) earlier this month. “Congress does not need to greenlight new tariff authority for the President to impose those sanctions on Russia today.”
Backers of the bill were quick to encourage its passage after the vote was announced on Friday.
“Great news that the House will vote on the much-needed Russia sanctions bill,” Senate Foreign Relations ranking member Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) wrote on social media. “Ukrainian civilians continue to be killed by Putin’s war machine, and this bill hits the Kremlin’s coffers hard. Now is the time to pass it and force Putin to the negotiating table.”
The measure passed in an 86-11 vote in the Senate in August.
House GOP leaders have picked Tuesday as the day to vote on legislation intended to shield Americans from the potential costs associated with the data center boom, according to two people granted anonymity to share private scheduling plans.
The upcoming floor action comes after a healthy number of vulnerable Republicans signed onto the measure in recent days, a sign that fears about the issue’s political volatility ahead of the midterms are continuing to grow as voters complain about rising energy prices as a result of data center proliferation.
The bipartisan Ratepayer Protection Act, which aims to compel tech companies to pay for the infrastructure associated with data center development, passed unanimously out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee this summer. Senior Republicans, however, said last week they were still weighing whether to bring the bill to the floor before the House recesses until after the November elections.
The decision to proceed this coming week signals that pressure has been building on leaders to act, underscored by the at least five House GOP frontliners who have signed on as cosponsors since September 1: Reps. Bill Huizenga and Tom Barrett of Michigan, David Valadao of California, Jen Kiggans of Virginia and Mónica de la Cruz of Texas.
Valadao, in an interview a week before he signed on as a cosponsor, called such measures “fine” but balked at the idea House Democratic leaders were trying to politicize data centers right before an election.
“Obviously it has to be addressed — making sure that we’re protecting our natural resources like water in my district,” he said. “Obviously, with California and their regulatory process, they’ve made energy more expensive than anywhere else in the country. So those are major concerns that need to be addressed, and I think those pieces of legislation will make sense.”
But, he added, allowing Democrats “to turn this into a political issue, I would say, is pretty irresponsible.”
The total number of cosponsors on the bill, championed by Reps. Gabe Evans (R-Colo.) and Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), to 42 Democrats and Republicans combined.
The Tuesday vote will take place under an expedited procedure that requires a two-thirds majority of those present and voting to secure passage.
Mia McCarthy and Amelia Davidson contributed to this report.
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