Our 2020 book is titled Divided We Stand: The 2020 Elections and American Politics. Among other things, it discusses the state of the parties. The state of the GOP is not good.
House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan became Republicans’ nominee for speaker Friday, winning a secret-ballot election against Georgia Rep. Austin Scott, a last-minute entrant into the race.
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“We’re done here until Monday,” Rep. Kat Cammack, R-Fla., said after the second ballot to gauge how many GOP members would back Jordan on the floor came in at 152-55. One member voted “present” on that second ballot, according to Cammack and Rep. French Hill, R-Ark.
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The second vote indicated slightly higher margin than the initial 124-81 vote Friday to nominate Jordan, a founder of the House Freedom Caucus who became an ally of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy in recent years. Still, according to Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the second-round vote total was “enough to not know if we could go to the floor today.”
Sahil Kapur and Julia Jester:...
“I don’t know, but the math is not good” for Jordan, Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., a Scalise backer, said Friday. “I think ultimately, we’re gonna have to find somebody who can truly unify us.”
Another Scalise ally, Florida Rep. Vern Buchanan, said ahead of Friday’s votes that he didn’t believe Jordan could get to 217 votes and that a quick turnaround to considering his bid was unfair to any challengers.
“I like Jim, but I just think that Steve got a raw deal,” Buchanan said. “I think he’s worked hard, he’s earned it and I think if [Jordan] would’ve given him a little bit more support — that really changed my mind a little bit on Jim Jordan.”
Democrats are standing firm in their refusal to bail out the House Republican majority as it struggles to elect a new speaker 10 days after after booting Rep. Kevin McCarthy.
They're also dialing up the rhetoric against the GOP’s new nominee for speaker, prominent Donald Trump ally Jim Jordan of Ohio, blasting him as an insurrectionist, election denier and extremist.
“House Republicans have selected as their nominee to be the speaker of the people’s House the chairman of the chaos caucus, a defender in a dangerous way of dysfunction, and an extremist extraordinaire,” House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said Friday on the steps of the Capitol, flanked by dozen of Democratic lawmakers. “His focus has been on peddling lies and conspiracy theories and driving division amongst the American people.”
Four of the former Ohio State University wrestlers who have accused Rep. Jim Jordan of failing to protect them from a sexual predator when he was the team’s assistant coach in the 1980s and '90s said Tuesday he has no business being the next speaker of the House.
“Do you really want a guy in that job who chose not to stand up for his guys?” said former OSU wrestler Mike Schyck, one of the hundreds of former athletes and students who say they were sexually abused by school doctor Richard Strauss and have sued the university. “Is that the kind of character trait you want for a House speaker?”
