Oct.09

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

   

GOP 49

Tomorrow the Battle for Speaker Begins

The speaker of the House is elected by the entire House, not by the majority party. That is important. Currently, there are 221 Republicans, 212 Democrats, and 2 vacancies in the House. To be elected speaker, a candidate needs 217 votes. There are three candidates for speaker right now: Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), Steve Scalise (R-LA), and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). It is virtually certain that Jeffries will get 212 Democratic votes on every ballot. That means to win, one of the Republicans has to get 217 of the 221 Republicans. More than four defections and it's no go.

Both Jordan and Scalise have dozens of endorsements, many more than four. If all the endorsers stick to their guns, nobody wins and another ballot is needed. And another. And another. There is no reason to think members are likely to switch horses in midstream. Jordan, in particular, is very unpopular with the Biden 18 because they fear he will carry on like a madman, shut the government down, and turn all the independents against the Republicans, including themselves. It is hard to see what Jordan could offer them to get 14 of the 18 to vote for him, even on the 15th ballot, unless they decide that the voting itself looks so bad for the GOP that a crazy speaker is better than showing the country that Republicans can't govern.

One thing that might affect the race is Donald Trump's endorsement of Jordan. It could make skittish members in red districts pick Jordan. But it could also make the Biden 18, who are mostly in districts where Trump is toxic, resolve to oppose Jordan until the bitter end lest Democrats campaign against them on "He/She is Trump's toady." But maybe Trump's endorsement won't even matter. There is no way to game this out. Last year, Trump backed Sen. Rick Scott (R-FL) when he challenged Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) for Senate Minority Leader. It didn't work. The alligator was crushed by the turtle. The Senate is different from the House due to the longer terms and bigger and more diverse constituencies, but still, Trump's endorsement didn't move the needle at all.

One thing that is roiling the Republican caucus before the action even starts is a proposed rules change. Over 90 House Republicans have signed a letter to Speaker Pro Tem Patrick McHenry (R-NC) asking to change the rules so that the caucus nominee be the unanimous choice of the caucus. Currently nominees must obtain majority choice. If every Republican agrees to the nominee in advance, then he would be elected on the first ballot and no more of this 15-ballot stuff, like last time. Allies of Scalise oppose this change because they know that Scalise might be able to get a majority of the caucus on his side, but he could never get everyone (including Jordan). The Freedom Caucus supports the change because that gives all of its members a veto. It should be noted that the caucus rules are not binding in any way. What matters is the public vote on the floor of the House. Of course, if McHenry delays the floor vote until all 221 Republicans agree on a candidate, the fighting will happen in private (but will leak like a sieve), and not on national television.

Tomorrow there will be a forum in which Scalise and Jordan each make their pitch. Originally, the plan was to televise the forum on Fox News, but that plan was scotched when many members decided they didn't want to air their dirty laundry in public. There is bound to be a straw vote either tomorrow after the forum or on Wednesday. What happens if neither candidate is even close to 217? Will the conference keep voting privately or will they move to the House floor to vote? What happens after a dozen or more ballots, either private or public, and neither candidate is close to 217? It should be noted that even if one of them gets to 217 privately, the vote on the House floor will be public and members of the Biden 18 are not going to want to go on record supporting a Trump-endorsed candidate. It could be a political death sentence.

It could get even worse. It is possible that Trump will take a break from attending his trial and show up tomorrow to endorse Jordan at the forum. That could easily be counterproductive, tying Jordan to Trump even more tightly, thus making him even more toxic to the Biden 18.

We don't see how this could end. Our best guess is that some dark horse acceptable to 217 Republicans emerges after many fruitless ballots, either privately or publicly. Reps. Kevin Hern (R-OK), Tom Cole (R-OK), and Tom Emmer (R-MN) are possibilities, but anything could happen. Maybe even McCarthy, the Sequel. It could get wild.

David Wasserman of the Cook Political Report sees five takeaways from what is going on in the House, summarized as follows.

• Gaetz destroyed the Republicans' secret weapon: Kevin McCarthy was the biggest GOP fundraiser in the history of the House. Now that McCarthy is (probably) history, all the money he would have raised this cycle is not going to be raised. Due to Scalise's health, he certainly can't start flying hither and yon raising money the way McCarthy did. Jordan is in fine health but he is poisonous to many Republican donors. In addition, McCarthy was very good at recruiting strong candidates. Scalise will not be any match for him and Jordan would recruit the same unelectable Republican candidates that Hakeem Jeffries would if he could. Finally, McCarthy made a deal in January NOT to recruit "moderate" candidates to oppose Freedom Caucusers. That deal just went bye-bye and McCarthy, freed from his leadership role, may now spend his time specifically recruiting moderates to oppose FCers.
  
  
• The chaos will continue: The fundamentals are not changing. The Freedom Caucus can still block anything the new speaker does and so can the Biden 18. The chaos is a gift to the Democrats who will take up the message "Republicans can't be trusted to govern." The longer the chaos goes on, the better for the House Democrats.
  
  
• Democrats were never going to bail out McCarthy: At first, it seemed possible that a handful of Blue Dog Democrats would save McCarthy's lunch. In retrospect, that was never going to happen. McCarthy objected to certifying the 2020 election, broke his promise to Joe Biden about the budget, started the process to impeach Biden, and then lied on television saying Democrats caused the mess in the House. There was never any possibility that any Democrats would bail him out after all these things. He simply operated in bad faith all the time.
  
  
• More retirements?: If you look at the Congress: retirements link in the menu to the left of the map, you see that since 2006, the average number of House Republicans retiring per cycle has been 24. Currently only four Republicans have announced their retirements and only one (Victoria Spartz) is a true retirement (as opposed to running for some other office). That number is now likely to shoot up as some members may decide they don't want to be in a body where eight members can bring the house down. The prime retirement announcement season is January, after family members at Thanksgiving and Christmas ask House members: "Why are you ruining your life being in that useless body?" If Republicans in swing districts call it quits, their districts are suddenly potential pickups for the Democrats.
  
  
• It's McCarthy's own fault: In the 2022 cycle, McCarthy studiously recruited House candidates who were not Trumpy. His goal was to win the House. It was his picks like Juan Ciscomani (AZ-06), Zach Nunn (IA-03), and Jen Kiggans (VA-02) who gave the Republicans their majority. His counterpart in the Senate was not as successful at blocking Trumpy candidates, so the Democrats captured the Senate. If McCarthy hadn't worked so hard in 2022 at recruiting non-Trumpy candidates, then probably the Democrats would have had a 2-3 seat majority, and it would be Hakeem Jeffries who would have been on the hot seat all the time. An ultra-thin Republican majority may actually prove to be worse for the Republicans in 2024 than an ultra-thin Democratic majority would have been. Then the Democrats would have been blamed for everything.
  

So, lots of internal horsetrading today, then the forum tomorrow followed by the first vote. We can't imagine either of the candidates winning on the first ballot. What happens after that is a complete unknown. Democrats are probably hoping that Jordan will win since he is a far better target than Scalise, who will get some sympathy for being injured in a shooting and is now dealing with cancer. We still think it very unlikely that Jordan can pull this off, but in a one-on-one race, his chances go up somewhat. (V)