\u201cWe are helping anybody, everybody,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

The differences between Republicans \u201care pretty darn small compared to the differences in Republicans and the radicals who control the other party,\u201d Jordan added, \u201cso let’s stick together.\u201d<\/p>\n

To the outside ear, that might sound like generic campaign-trail hokum. But to Jordan\u2019s colleagues, his comments essentially renouncing the factional warfare<\/a> that made him a proto-MAGA star is emblematic of the shadow election battle that is now quietly underway \u2014 to lead what is expected to be a diminished House Republican Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> would run for minority leader in that scenario.<\/p>\n

They are keeping a close eye on two potential alternatives \u2014 Jordan, who has run twice before to lead House Republicans, and Majority Leader Steve Scalise<\/a>, who has spent more than a decade climbing the GOP leadership ladder<\/a>.<\/p>\n

While most expect the contest to explode into plain view after Tuesday\u2019s election, neither man is acknowledging any jockeying \u2014 or even the possibility that the GOP could lose the majority.<\/p>\n

\u201cI’m supporting Hakeem Jeffries<\/a> for minority leader,\u201d Scalise scoffed in an interview, referring to the top House Democrat, and said that \u201canybody who’s measuring the drapes of the minority leader’s office is not focused on the right things.\u201d<\/p>\n

But their colleagues are closely following their respective pre-midterm maneuvers \u2014 including trips like Jordan\u2019s \u2014 and quietly handicapping who might have the advantage if their expectations for an underwhelming Election Day come to pass.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s 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<\/a> in recent years.<\/p>\n

$\"House$ <\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s Jordan\u2019s race to lose,\u201d said a House Republican, who like others in this story was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the as-yet-unofficial race. \u201cI think it\u2019s his time.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPeople want fresh blood,\u201d another GOP member said \u2014 referring to the 62-year-old Jordan, not the 60-year-old Scalise.<\/p>\n

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<\/a> that he believed his \u201ccolleagues would ask me to continue leading this conference\u201d even in the minority \u2014 something no former speaker has done since Nancy Pelosi\u2019s Democrats lost the 2010 midterms.<\/p>\n

A close election result could make that tenable, but most Republicans believe he will step aside. Retiring Rep. Mark Amodei<\/a> (R-Nev.) said in an interview he\u2019s told Johnson he \u201csincerely\u201d wants him to stay on as speaker next Congress but acknowledged the current national landscape is not \u201cwarm\u201d for Republicans.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen \u2026 everything’s good, the quarterback’s the hero,\u201d Amodei said. \u201cWhen you lose, I’m sure there’ll be plenty of blame to go around \u2014 that’s what transpires.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked if he would back Johnson for the top spot regardless of Tuesday\u2019s results, Scalise said, \u201cI support Mike for speaker, and I want to see us, again, work and leave everything out on the field.\u201d<\/p>\n

A Johnson spokesperson said the speaker is \u201csolely focused on holding the majority\u201d 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.<\/p>\n

If Democrats win the majority, Scalise is facing a squeeze: Rep. Tom Emmer<\/a> of Minnesota, the current No. 3, has said regardless of the election outcome he will run for party whip \u2014 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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<\/a>, the outgoing chair of the Republican Study Committee.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

White House spokesperson Allison Schuster said Trump is \u201claser-focused on maintaining Republican majorities in Congress\u201d and is \u201ccertainly not weighing in on Hakeem\u2019s race and possible Democrat challengers for Minority Leader.\u201d<\/p>\n

Were he to mount a minority leader run, Jordan would have to overcome a pair of previous failed bids for the No. 1 post \u2014 where, in both cases, colleagues saw him as too combative and ideological to lead the party.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

So did Scalise, who beat him in an initial conference tally<\/a>, but neither man could gather the required 218 votes \u2014 ultimately leading to Johnson\u2019s election as speaker. What many Republicans remember most about the process was a scorched-earth campaign conducted by Jordan\u2019s allies outside of Congress, with some members recalling floods of phone calls during the election drama \u2014 including some death threats.<\/p>\n

Asked about those incidents, Jordan said, \u201cThere\u2019s no place for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a guy who gets death threats all the time, I don’t want that to happen to anybody \u2014 Republican, Democrat, any American,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

He\u2019s made campaign appearances for endangered members like Rep. Jen Kiggans<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n

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 \u2014 Rep. Anna Paulina Luna<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In an interview, Luna credited Jordan with helping her get elected in 2022 and faulted the House\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Asked about her potential support for a Jordan leadership run, Luna said he \u201cdefinitely has a really good shot at it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI am fair game for anyone who thinks that they have a shot at that position,\u201d she added. \u201cI 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.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kimberly Leonard contributed to this report.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MYRTLE BEACH, South Carolina \u2014 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\u2019s here to help. \u201cWe are helping anybody, everybody,\u201d the veteran Ohio lawmaker said in an interview on the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":27656,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-congress"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27655\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27656"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}