WASHINGTON — Jim Jordan will lead House Republicans in the minority next year. The Ohio congressman won the job on Tuesday, a week after Democrats swept the midterm elections and took both chambers of Congress, according to Reuters.
It was a secret ballot, held behind closed doors, and it was not close. Jordan took 106 votes to 73 for House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, people familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal.
Jordan is 62, a former college wrestling coach who helped start the House Freedom Caucus and has run the Judiciary Committee since 2023. The leader’s job opened up when Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana decided not to seek it, and it runs through the final two years of President Donald Trump’s presidency.
The numbers explain the mood. On Tuesday afternoon, with some races still not called, the Associated Press count cited by the Journal put Democrats at at least 254 seats and Republicans at at least 165. The current House stands at 219 to 214 in the Republicans’ favor, with two seats vacant.
The case Jordan made
Jordan pitched himself as the Republican best placed to fight a Democratic majority that is expected to aim its oversight powers at the Trump White House, CNN reported. A person familiar with Jordan’s thinking told CNN that Trump “is still the leader of our party” and that Republicans would be “fighting tooth and nail to make sure his agenda continues to stay implemented.”
In a letter to colleagues last week, Jordan leaned on his record running the Judiciary Committee.
“I am battle-tested on the oversight front, and I know the Democrats’ playbook”
“I know what it will take to lead our Conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats’ tactics,” he wrote.
A rematch from 2023
Scalise, 61, has sat in one of the top four House Republican leadership posts since 2014, when he became whip. Before Tuesday’s candidate forum, he told reporters the vote marked “the start of our move to get the country back on track and get the majority back, but obviously, we’re going to have a lot of internal conversations.”
The two men have been here before. After Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California was ousted in 2023, Scalise beat Jordan in a closed-door conference vote for the speaker nomination, then withdrew a day later. Neither man ended up with the gavel. Johnson did.
Neither Trump nor Johnson took sides this time, the New York Post reported. Johnson, who stays in charge of the Republican conference for the rest of the year, urged members to rally behind the new leadership team. “I’m encouraging the conference to unite around them quickly,” he told reporters. “We have a lot of important work to do to wrap up this Congress and to finish strong.”
Jordan takes over as minority leader when the new Congress convenes in January.