Mr. Jordan’s closeness with the former president has given him unparalleled cachet with the party base, and his backers were counting on that to help him prevail in a vote that could come as early as Tuesday.
Image credit: While Friday’s votes were secret ballots, by Saturday, right-wing activists appeared to have identified about a dozen holdouts against Mr. Jordan as top targets for their onslaught.
Jordan Activates Right-Wing Campaign in Push to Win Speakership
. . .Representative Jim Jordan and his allies have begun a right-wing pressure campaign against Republicans opposed to electing him speaker, working to unleash the rage of the party’s base voters against any lawmaker standing in the way of his election.
Even after Mr. Jordan, the hard-right Ohio Republican, won his party’s nomination for the post on Friday, he remained far short of the 217 votes he needed to win the gavel, with scores of his colleagues refusing to back him.
In efforts to close the gap, lawmakers and activists close to him have taken to social media and the airwaves to blast the Republicans they believe are blocking his path to victory and encourage voters to browbeat them into supporting Mr. Jordan.
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It is an extraordinary instance of Republican-on-Republican fighting that underscores the divisions that have wrought chaos inside the party, paralyzing the House of Representatives in the process. Several of Mr. Jordan’s supporters have posted the phone numbers of mainstream G.O.P. lawmakers they count as holdouts, encouraging followers to flood the Capitol switchboard with calls demanding they back Mr. Jordan — or face the wrath of conservative voters as they gear up for primary season. . .
✓ Amy Kremer, a political activist affiliated with the Tea Party movement and Mr. Trump who also leads Women for America First, which organized a “Stop the Steal” rally in 2021, posted a hit list of 12 members on Friday. She listed their office phone numbers and urged her followers to call them and tell them to support Mr. Jordan. The list included Representatives Ann Wagner of Missouri, Mike Rogers of Alabama and Carlos Gimenez of Florida, all of whom have publicly stated their opposition to Mr. Jordan.
. . .Mr. Jordan’s supporters said his decision to send lawmakers home to their districts over the weekend rather than keeping them in Washington for one-on-one meetings to drum up support was a deliberate move to intensify grass-roots pressure on them to fall into line.
“Everybody’s going to go home, listen to their constituents, and make a decision,” said Representative Tim Burchett of Tennessee, predicting that hearing from the party base would help sway holdouts in Mr. Jordan’s direction. “Honestly, the grass roots, there’s nobody stronger.”
. . .It was unclear whether the pressure campaign would be able to net Mr. Jordan the votes he needed as the second candidate put forth in recent days as the Republican nominee.
Some conservative strategists close to Mr. Jordan believe he will easily be able to win over his detractors, institutionalists who put a high premium on a functioning government and projecting normalcy. Unlike the hard right, the strategists argue, staging a floor revolt simply isn’t in their nature.
“These 60 members are not voting against Jordan on the floor,” Russell T. Vought, president of the Center for Renewing America, a think tank with ties to Mr. Trump, and a strategist close to Mr. Jordan, wrote on X. “Take it to the floor & call their bluff.”
Luke Broadwater and Catie Edmondson contributed reporting.
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Cleveland.com, which produces content for The Plain Dealer, Ohio's largest newspaper by circulation, published an opinion column on Sunday in response to Jordan's nomination.
The column, written by Brent Larkin who was The Plain Dealer's editorial director from 1991 until his retirement in 2009, expressed disapproval of Jordan as a nominee for House speaker and provided a strong warning against the congressman and Trump, the frontrunner in the 2024 GOP presidential primary, if both are successful in attaining the positions they are seeking.
"Just maybe, deep in the recesses of their souls, the prospect of this country having its very own Axis of Evil frightened even them. As it should. Because that's precisely what would become of the United States with Donald Trump as president and Jordan as House speaker. Placing second in the line of presidential succession, a man willing to besmirch everything America stands for in service of Trump by rights should prove too risky for many of the House's 221 Republican members," Larkin wrote. . .
Ohio Newspaper Article Warns Jim Jordan Will Form 'Axis of Evil' With Trump
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