Jim Jordan calls on House GOP to ‘come together’ after pressure campaign ‘backfired’

Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) is calling on House Republicans to “come together” and stop attacking each other as some conference members express their displeasure with the Ohio Republican’s pressure campaign to be elected House speaker.

Jordan, in a post on X, formerly known as Twitter, said Tuesday night that there is “too much at stake” to have House GOP infighting. He needs at least 16 of the 20 Republicans who voted against him in the first speaker ballot to flip their vote and support him to be elected in a subsequent ballot.

“We must stop attacking each other and come together. There’s too much at stake. Let’s get back to working on the crisis at the southern border, inflation, and helping Israel,” Jordan wrote.

Some of the Jordan holdouts have expressed frustration with how the Ohio Republican’s team has worked to try to flip votes in the speaker race. Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE), who voted for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) in the first round, told Politico that his wife had received anonymous texts and emails imploring him to vote for Jordan.

“Jim’s been nice, one-on-one, but his broader team has been playing hardball,” he said.

Rep. Byron Donalds (R-FL), who voted for Jordan, said he believed the pressure campaign was backfiring on Jordan during an interview on Fox News’s America Reports on Tuesday.

“There are members up here who — they want to be able to make this decision on leadership and then move forward. I think some of the pressure campaigns have backfired. They have not worked,” Donalds said.

Jordan said on Tuesday that the next speaker vote of the full House would happen at 11 a.m. on Wednesday. When announcing the next vote would not be until Wednesday, Jordan expressed optimism about picking up the necessary votes to be elected.

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“We’re making progress. I feel good about it. We’re going to keep going. We’ve had great discussions. Frankly, in our conference, nobody wants to see a coalition government with Democrats,” Jordan said.

The House of Representatives has been without its constitutionally mandated leader for two weeks since McCarthy was ousted in a historic vote that saw eight Republicans join all Democrats in removing the House speaker.