Republican U.S. House Reps. Tom Emmer, Jim Jordan, Byron Donalds and Steve Scalise all failed to garner enough popularity along the split GOP House conference over the past few contentious weeks.
This all came to fruition after Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) leveraged a new motion to vacate option to oust now former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) was the most hopeful option yet for Republicans to all agree on last night, and today it was put to a vote.
It appears that after certain Republicans angry at Gaetz got their fun out of their system, they finally did agree to a more pro-Donald Trump candidate. Democrats have been claiming that they are more united and today it appears Republicans would finally look to push back on that narrative.
Many McCarthy supporters in congress were initially bitter and seemed to want a McCarthy ally or possibly even to keep voting for McCarthy. It seems that as fatigue set in they finally caved which still appears to give Matt Gaetz a relative win even after a little longer than expected headache.
In the moments that lead up to the vote, Democrats immediately began their fundraising efforts by launching attacks against Johnson for objecting to the 2020 presidential election results.
There has been a good deal of speculation that Democrats may have actually been looking forward to fundraising off of the more well known name of Jim Jordan by seeking to draw outrage against those who don’t like Jordan.
Democrats and even some RINOs however are concerned that Johnson may not want to fund foreign wars as much as other candidates. Time will certainly tell how things pan out and it’s possible that funding for Israel and Ukraine may become separate as well.
Johnson passed 217 votes and the final count will soon be updated.
With the vote still “open”, Fox News showed 220 to 209 for Mike Johnson vs Hakeem Jeffries:
