McCarthy says he supports Jordan in uphill climb to shore up votes for House speaker’s gavel

Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy has thrown his support behind Rep. Jim Jordan after House Republicans nominated the lawmaker as speaker designate in a closed-door vote. 

Lawmakers elected Mr. Jordan of Ohio after House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana dropped out as speaker designate Thursday after about 20 conservatives refused to support him. 

“I support Jim Jordan fully; Jim was a great ally to me. He worked hard,” Mr. McCarthy said on the “Cats and Cosby” radio show. “We came into Congress together.”

But Mr. Jordan has a long way to go before winning the gavel, and he’ll need to change the minds of dozens of conservative lawmakers to do it. The House will have been without a speaker for 13 days when it returns Monday.

“We’ve got some people not there yet,” Mr. McCarthy said. “We just get together, work a little longer and we can have a new speaker in Jim Jordan next week.”

Mr. Jordan, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, won a pair of votes Friday to secure the nomination. He won the first test against Rep. Austin Scott of Georgia, who was widely viewed by lawmakers as a proxy for Mr. Scalise, by 124 to 81. 

He then won a second round, determining whether lawmakers would support him during a House floor vote by 152 to 55. 

The magic number to win the gavel is 217. 

Rep. Ryan Zinke of Montana told The Washington Times that more than 70 votes is “a lot to make up.” Mr. Zinke said he would support Mr. Jordan on the floor but hoped to avoid a repeat of the speaker election fiasco in January by shoring up support for the lawmaker before taking the vote to the House floor.  

“Such foolishness on the floor is unflattering to the institution. So I would prefer we have a family discussion,” Mr. Zinke said.  

Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart of Florida, who was on the whip team working to gather support for Mr. Scalise, said he did not have a problem with Mr. Jordan. 

Mr. Balart noted that the speaker designate said he supported Mr. Scalise before the No. 2 House Republican dropped out of the race. He said that he was concerned about what Mr. Jordan’s inability to sway his followers to support Mr. Scalise could mean for his ability to lead the conference. 

“This is, frankly, I hate to say this, kind of like the simplest thing we do, right? And if you can’t get your own people to follow you on a very simple thing like this, then I think you have an issue of leadership,” Mr. Balart said. 

Mr. Jordan’s chances are a math problem similar to the one Mr. Scalise faced. Part of the calculus is figuring out how to convince lawmakers who are firmly entrenched against him to support him on the floor.

Rep. Dusty Johnson of South Dakota had also worked to whip votes for Mr. Scalise but ultimately threw his support behind Mr. Jordan — he gave the nominating speech for Mr. Jordan during the GOP’s closed-door candidate forum Friday afternoon. 

Mr. Johnson said lawmakers have to focus on the situations “as they exist today” and not focus on “petty squabbles.” 

“We need to ask ourselves, who is the speaker for tomorrow? Who is going to give us the best chance to secure conservative wins while avoiding a government shutdown? Who is going to give us the best opportunity to manage the difficult personalities in our conference,” Mr. Johnson said. “I think the no votes are focusing on yesterday, I think the yes votes are focusing on tomorrow.”