Congress
Inside the shadow campaign to lead a diminished House GOP
MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina — Donald Trump is facing his worst-ever approval ratings as president, GOP candidates in deep-red districts are scrambling for political cover, and Jim Jordan would like his fellow House Republicans to know he’s here to help.
“We are helping anybody, everybody,” the veteran Ohio lawmaker said in an interview on the sidelines of a get-out-the-vote rally in South Carolina, a typically red state that is suddenly a midterm battleground.
The differences between Republicans “are pretty darn small compared to the differences in Republicans and the radicals who control the other party,” Jordan added, “so let’s stick together.”
To the outside ear, that might sound like generic campaign-trail hokum. But to Jordan’s colleagues, his comments essentially renouncing the factional warfare that made him a proto-MAGA star is emblematic of the shadow election battle that is now quietly underway — to lead what is expected to be a diminished House Republican Conference.
Interviews with three dozen GOP lawmakers and senior Republican aides revealed the widespread expectation that their House majority is coming to an end and that many are skeptical Speaker Mike Johnson would run for minority leader in that scenario.
They are keeping a close eye on two potential alternatives — Jordan, who has run twice before to lead House Republicans, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who has spent more than a decade climbing the GOP leadership ladder.
While most expect the contest to explode into plain view after Tuesday’s election, neither man is acknowledging any jockeying — or even the possibility that the GOP could lose the majority.
“I’m supporting Hakeem Jeffries for minority leader,” Scalise scoffed in an interview, referring to the top House Democrat, and said that “anybody who’s measuring the drapes of the minority leader’s office is not focused on the right things.”
But their colleagues are closely following their respective pre-midterm maneuvers — including trips like Jordan’s — and quietly handicapping who might have the advantage if their expectations for an underwhelming Election Day come to pass.
Scalise has spent nearly eight years as the No. 2 leader, raising scads of money and building back-slapping relationships with a broad cross-section of members. He’s traveled this cycle with 203 candidates and incumbents and sent nearly $24 million to fellow Republicans. Jordan, meanwhile, has made himself into a conservative icon through his battles with top GOP leaders and his combative performances at Oversight and Judiciary committee hearings, only to take a more conciliatory turn in recent years.
Many, though not all, predict that a Republican wipeout Tuesday would leave members reluctant to elevate a member of the existing leadership structure and would instead choose a known face of the conservative insurgency.
“It’s Jordan’s race to lose,” said a House Republican, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the as-yet-unofficial race. “I think it’s his time.”
“People want fresh blood,” another GOP member said — referring to the 62-year-old Jordan, not the 60-year-old Scalise.
Aside from the election results, the big unknown surrounds Johnson, who just celebrated his three-year anniversary as speaker. He recently suggested in a CBS News interview that he believed his “colleagues would ask me to continue leading this conference” even in the minority — something no former speaker has done since Nancy Pelosi’s Democrats lost the 2010 midterms.
A close election result could make that tenable, but most Republicans believe he will step aside. Retiring Rep. Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) said in an interview he’s told Johnson he “sincerely” wants him to stay on as speaker next Congress but acknowledged the current national landscape is not “warm” for Republicans.
“When … everything’s good, the quarterback’s the hero,” Amodei said. “When you lose, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of blame to go around — that’s what transpires.”
Asked if he would back Johnson for the top spot regardless of Tuesday’s results, Scalise said, “I support Mike for speaker, and I want to see us, again, work and leave everything out on the field.”
A Johnson spokesperson said the speaker is “solely focused on holding the majority” and plans to campaign in 21 districts across 13 states before Election Day. If he succeeds in staving off Democrats, most Republicans believe those in the existing leadership slate would continue in their posts. The speaker raised $526 million this cycle for House Republican campaigns and the major House GOP super PAC.
If Democrats win the majority, Scalise is facing a squeeze: Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota, the current No. 3, has said regardless of the election outcome he will run for party whip — which is the No. 2 spot in the minority. If Johnson were to try to stay on in that scenario, Scalise would be forced into a contested race to either move up or keep his rung on the GOP power ladder.
The initial hours after a GOP loss could see a flurry of announcements as potential leaders make their intentions known and scramble to win verbal commitments from their colleagues. Candidates have only until Nov. 6 to declare, with the leadership election scheduled for the Tuesday after the midterms.
While Jordan and Scalise are being most closely watched, some believe Emmer could emerge as a candidate if others fail, as could Texas Rep. August Pfluger, the outgoing chair of the Republican Study Committee.
Many will also be keeping eyes on President Donald Trump, who has yet to weigh in on the post-election GOP leadership picture. He endorsed Johnson for reelection Monday without mentioning him continuing as top leader.
White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said Trump is “laser-focused on maintaining Republican majorities in Congress” and is “certainly not weighing in on Hakeem’s race and possible Democrat challengers for Minority Leader.”
Were he to mount a minority leader run, Jordan would have to overcome a pair of previous failed bids for the No. 1 post — where, in both cases, colleagues saw him as too combative and ideological to lead the party.
His 2018 run for minority leader, in the aftermath of the last Democratic House takeover, fell well short to Kevin McCarthy. He went on to ally himself with McCarthy, however, and mounted a bid to take over as speaker in 2023 after McCarthy was ousted from the post.
So did Scalise, who beat him in an initial conference tally, but neither man could gather the required 218 votes — ultimately leading to Johnson’s election as speaker. What many Republicans remember most about the process was a scorched-earth campaign conducted by Jordan’s allies outside of Congress, with some members recalling floods of phone calls during the election drama — including some death threats.
Asked about those incidents, Jordan said, “There’s no place for that.”
“As a guy who gets death threats all the time, I don’t want that to happen to anybody — Republican, Democrat, any American,” he said.
The math for a potential minority leader bid is different: Jordan needed near-unanimity to win the speaker race, which is contested among both parties on the House floor. Election as minority leader involves Republicans voting only among themselves, and Jordan has made conspicuous moves in the past three years to build support with more centrist members of the party.
He’s made campaign appearances for endangered members like Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia, lending the star power of a Fox News regular to their campaign stops. As Judiciary chair, Jordan sent signals to farm-state Republicans that he could be willing to back off his hard-line immigration stances and agree to new guest-worker measures aimed at the agricultural industry, according to three people involved in those conversations.
Jordan has also retained his backing from the more MAGA-friendly corners of the conference, including members who have clashed with McCarthy, Johnson and Scalise. He rallied Saturday in Clearwater, Florida, with one of them — Rep. Anna Paulina Luna.
In an interview, Luna credited Jordan with helping her get elected in 2022 and faulted the House’s existing leaders for standing in the way of her efforts to ban stock trading and allow new parents in the House to vote by proxy.
Asked about her potential support for a Jordan leadership run, Luna said he “definitely has a really good shot at it.”
“I am fair game for anyone who thinks that they have a shot at that position,” she added. “I want to hear what the platform is. But I will tell you that Jim Jordan helped get me elected, and I have an immense amount of respect for him because I remember who was there for me when no one else was.”
Kimberly Leonard contributed to this report.
The FBI on Tuesday raided a Los Angeles area mansion connected to Stephen Cloobeck, a billionaire and former Democratic donor who was a close associate of former Rep. Eric Swalwell.
“The FBI is executing a federal search warrant” at the Beverly Hills mansion, which is listed on Cloobeck’s California business filings, a spokesperson for the FBI’s Los Angeles field office said in a statement.
No arrests are planned, and the affidavit for the search warrant remains sealed, the spokesperson said. The FBI search was related to “an ongoing criminal investigation,” a Justice Department spokesperson said in a statement, declining to provide further details.
Cloobeck, a one-time California gubernatorial candidate, dropped his bid and donated more than $1 million to back Swalwell after he declared his candidacy. But he later said he had cut ties with the former lawmaker after sexual assault allegations against Swalwell emerged.
Swalwell resigned from Congress and dropped his gubernatorial bid but has denied the allegations. The Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation into Swalwell that included an FBI search of his Washington home in August, the AP reported at the time.
Cloobeck was arrested in May after Los Angeles County prosecutors charged him with allegedly attempting to impede victim or witness testimony. He was later released on bail and pleaded not guilty to all counts in August.
Cloobeck and his attorney did not immediately respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said it has not taken part in the FBI’s Tuesday raid.
A potential Democratic majority on Capitol Hill would face a serious split over whether to use its newfound power to protect transgender Americans.
Progressive lawmakers are pushing Democratic leaders to undo President Donald Trump’s attacks on trans people’s health care, participation in athletics and protections against discrimination.
But affordability, not culture war fights, has been the overriding theme of Democrats’ push to retake control of Congress. Many centrists fear any pivot away from that pledge would splinter the party, especially with many Democratic candidates openly rejecting some trans rights initiatives during their campaigns.
“You have to focus on what people care about,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (R-N.Y.) said in an interview. “Right now that’s affordability, and they want some relief. That’s what we should talk about.”
One senior House Democrat serving on House Appropriations, who was granted anonymity to discuss a private conversation, recalled personally asking Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries not to focus on trans issues or other flashpoints if the party wins the House.
Nearly a dozen lawmakers and advocates, however, argued for a two-pronged approach to protecting trans people: passing legislation to codify certain rights for trans individuals and using committee gavels to probe the Trump administration’s actions.
“We need to have an affirmative platform that protects and expands rights for LGBTQ people,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) said in an interview, while the Human Rights Campaign’s Ramiro Sarmiento said Congress “needs to use every tool it has to push back” on Trump.
Jeffries did not respond to a request for comment, but other top Democrats are responding to the conflict between affordability and civil rights by asking: Why not both?
“If we are telling people that we no longer value equality in this country, it’s really hard to build a fair economy,” House Minority Whip Katherine Clark said in an interview. “You can’t silo these issues out.”
What else we’re watching:
— THE GOP’S SMALL DONOR PROBLEM: The GOP’s cash advantage over Democrats this cycle has been thanks to a small group of megadonors like Elon Musk. But when it comes to the grassroots donor base, there’s a stark contrast between the parties. Small donations through major online platforms have dipped for Republicans since 2022 while they’re up for Democrats by about a third. That’s left vulnerable Republican candidates more reliant on Trump’s campaign war chest and super PACs.
— GOP CLIMATE BLOC FACES WIPEOUT: A midterm blue wave could decimate the cohort of Republicans who advocate for addressing climate change and pursuing clean-energy policies. The Conservative Climate Caucus, a House GOP group that pushes for those policies, could lose up to a third of its members in the midterms, with 11 of 66 membersin tight races and another 15 more retiring. That would shrink the pool of negotiating partners for Democrats as they plan on a renewed push for climate legislation.
Some Democrats are fired up to use their potential majorities in Congress next year and undo President Donald Trump’s attacks on transgender Americans. Others just want to focus on the cost of gas.
Ahead of the midterms, progressive lawmakers and congressional candidates are clashing with moderates in office and on the campaign trail over whether to pursue a legislative agenda that includes protecting trans people — whose health care, participation in athletics and protections against discrimination have been targeted by the administration.
“We need to have an affirmative platform that protects and expands rights for LGBTQ people,” said Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Ed Markey in an interview.
He is among nearly a dozen lawmakers and advocates who said they want Democrats to pursue a two-pronged approach: pass legislation to codify certain rights for trans individuals, and use committee gavels to compel public testimony from Trump officials on their efforts to undermine protections for trans and nonbinary people.
But the need to tackle affordability, not culture war fights, has been the overriding theme of the Democrats’ push to retake control of Congress. Many Democrats believe that their promise to lower the cost of living will be the reason they win back majorities in the House or the Senate.
Many centrists fear any pivot away from that pledge would splinter a new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill, especially with some candidates openly rejecting some trans rights initiatives during their campaigns.
“You have to focus on what people care about,” Rep. Tom Suozzi (D-N.Y.) said in an interview. “Right now that’s affordability, and they want some relief. That’s what we should talk about.”
Rep. Marc Veasey, a moderate Texas Democrat who is retiring this year, said “cultural issues” including transgender rights are “something we should dive into once [Trump] is gone.”
“The American public is going to want to see our caucus focus on costs as long as he continues to affect the markets negatively with his tariffs and wars,” he said.
Progressive advocacy groups and their Hill allies say they can’t wait. Democrats, they argue, should hold hearings on the DOJ’s decision last summer to subpoena more than 20 doctors and clinics who’ve provided gender-affirming care to obtain potentially patient-identifying information, advocates say, leading some hospitals to stop providing youth gender affirming care.
They also want Democrats to challenge the Education Department’s move last month to officially rescind anti-discrimination protections for transgender students instituted under former President Joe Biden. They’re pushing, too, for an investigation of the Justice Department’s restrictions on gender-affirming care for incarcerated people and policy against placing prisoners in populations consistent with their gender identity — a move which has faced legal challenges.
In terms of legislation, Democrats are sure to encounter limitations so long as long as Trump is in office. The president is opposed to the cornerstone piece of LGBTQ+ advocates’ agenda, the Equality Act, which would amend civil rights laws to explicitly prohibit gender identity discrimination. It might not even have the votes to overcome a Senate filibuster and get to Trump’s desk.
Democrats likewise are sure to run into resistance in trying to attach pro-transgender policies to must-pass legislative vehicles, such as government spending bills or the annual defense policy package. The same goes for any attempts to overrule or modify the administration’s suggested changes to the 2030 Census, which include a proposal to remove questions about sexual orientation.
That reality should not be a deterrent, argued Ramiro Sarmiento, national press secretary at the Human Rights Campaign, a pro-LGBTQ+ civil rights advocacy group.
“Congress needs to use every tool it has to push back against the dismantling of protections at the federal level,” said Sarmiento.
He, along with Ian Thompson, senior legislative advocate at the ACLU, and Tyler Hack, founder and executive director of the Christopher Street Project — a hybrid PAC and nonprofit focused on building support for transgender rights in Congress — said their organizations have already begun preliminary conversations with several Democrats about the moves they could make to reverse or combat anti-trans-rights initiatives by Trump administration.
Those Democrats include longstanding LGBTQ+ rights champions like Markey and Reps. Jamie Raskin of Maryland and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, plus progressive candidates like Minnesota’s Peggy Flanagan and New York’s Claire Valdez and Brad Lander.
Hack conceded that trans protection issues are not what “most Americans are thinking about” but added, “Unfortunately, they are the issues that the White House is thinking about, and it’s the responsibility of Congress to be a check on their powers.”
The advocates say Trump’s executive orders and the GOP agenda have had drastic impacts on transgender Americans and their families, including by limiting their access to health care and identification documents that reflect their gender identity. It’s led some families with trans children to make plans to leave the country.
“I believe our role in Congress is to stand up for the little guys who are being picked on by bullies like Donald Trump and the Republicans,” Markey said about Democrats’ obligations.
They’re going up against Democrats who want nothing to do with any transgender-related fight as Republicans pummel their party for being out of touch and “woke.” GOP ads in nearly every battleground race have targeted their Democratic opponents over their party’s support for trans rights.
That has prompted numerous Democrats to run rebuttal ads, such as veteran Ohio Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s recent spot stating “boys should not play in girls’ sports.”
Alaska Democratic Senate nominee Mary Peltola told voters at a recent campaign event her “hope is that we don’t have to spend one second on a conversation about trans anything” in the next Congress, according to a Washington Sun report.
One senior House Democrat, who was granted anonymity to discuss a private conversation, recalled personally asking Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries not to focus on trans issues or other culture war flashpoints if the party wins the House.
Jeffries and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer did not respond to requests for comment on their plans for tackling trans-related issues in the coming Congress.
Advocates argue that issues of gender identity and equality are, in fact, pocketbook issues and cannot be simply shunted aside.
“When you are putting in place, for example, policies that say that you can’t get a driver’s license that accurately reflects who you are, or that you can’t use a public restroom, what you are telling people is they can’t work, they can’t hold a job or participate in the public life of our country,” the ACLU’s Thompson said. “Those have very significant economic consequences.”
Several senior House Democrats — Minority Whip Katherine Clark, the No. 2 leader, Rep. Ted Lieu of California, the No. 4 leader, and Rep. Jim McGovern of Massachusetts, the top Rules Committee Democrat — said much the same in interviews.
“If we are telling people that we no longer value equality in this country, it’s really hard to build a fair economy,” Clark said. “You can’t silo these issues out.”
Riley Rogerson and Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
- Republicans rethink their attacks on AOC
- The midterms may revive a dying breed: The oil-state Democrat
- New satellites see thousands of methane leaks. Governments shrug.
- Dems have lost in the rural Midwest for years. This might be their time to win it back.
- GOP defense hawks break with Trump ahead of the midterms
- Inside the shadow campaign to lead a diminished House GOP
- Abbott taps tech cash for closing push in Texas governor’s race
- Trump touts methane rollback at Paxton campaign stop
- Republicans wanted Rubio on the stump. Trump coaxed him there.
- FBI raids Beverly Hills mansion tied to former Eric Swalwell donor
-
Politics2 years agoFormer ‘Squad’ members launching ‘Bowman and Bush’ YouTube show
-
Uncategorized2 years ago
Bob Good to step down as Freedom Caucus chair this week
-
The Josh Fourrier Show2 years agoDOOMSDAY: Trump won, now what?
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoPete Hegseth’s tenure at the Pentagon goes from bad to worse
-
Politics2 years agoFormer Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron launches Senate bid
-
Politics1 year agoJohn Legend advises Trump to drop the ‘dictator s‑‑‑’ if he wants Nobel Peace Prize
-
The Dictatorship2 years agoLuigi Mangione acknowledges public support in first official statement since arrest
-
Politics2 years agoBlue Light News’s Editorial Director Ryan Hutchins speaks at Blue Light News’s 2025 Governors Summit