Jim Jordan elected minority leader by House GOP

House Republicans elected Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) on Tuesday to lead their diminished conference in the next Congress, marking an extraordinary leap for a conservative icon who made his name on Capitol Hill antagonizing party leaders.

Jordan defeated Rep. Steve Scalise (R-La.), the outgoing House majority leader, in a closed-door election in the bowels of the Capitol Visitor Center by a vote of 106-73. Scalise has been in the top echelons of GOP leadership since 2014 — holding the No. 2 spot in the conference since 2019; his allies touted that experience as a reason to put the Louisiana Republican at the helm of the party.

But after the clobbering of Republican candidates in last week’s midterms, many GOP lawmakers at the Capitol blamed party leadership for the heavy losses.

Much of that anger was directed toward Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.). But Johnson is stepping down from the leadership ranks at the end of the term. That left Scalise and Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), the GOP whip, who quickly became targets of a “clean house” sentiment that rapidly caught fire within the restive conference.

Jordan, a 20-year House veteran, took advantage of the angsty environment, portraying himself as a fresh face in leadership and a fighter ready to take on both Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.), who’s in line for the Speakership, and the new Democratic majority.

The Ohio Republican had also spent months on the campaign trail this year stumping for GOP candidates and building alliances that appear to have helped him in Tuesday’s vote, which was influenced heavily by party newcomers following a wave of Republican retirements this cycle.

In one sense, Jordan fits the outsider mold. He’s a co-founder of the House Freedom Caucus — the most conservative bloc in the lower chamber — and served as its first chairman. The group built its brand and gained its power on a willingness to attack its own party leaders in pursuit of smaller government.

Jordan, a former champion wrestler, seemed custom built for the role. And the Freedom Caucus under his watch went out of its way to clash with then-Speaker John Boehner, a fellow Ohio Republican whom conservatives deemed too ready to compromise the party’s values for the sake of bipartisan compromise. Under constant pressure from the group, Boehner resigned from Congress in 2015.

More recently, however, Jordan has shifted toward the establishment and toed the party line.

After opposing Rep. Kevin McCarthy’s (R-Calif.) failed bid for the Speakership in 2015, Jordan reversed course and threw his weight behind McCarthy — even as other conservatives booted him from power in 2023. That change of tune helped Jordan gain power by more conventional means, rising to win the top GOP spot on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and eventually chairing the powerful Judiciary Committee — a position he’s held throughout the 119th Congress.

McCarthy, who has long feuded with Scalise, paid it back in the leadership contest by lobbying on Jordan’s behalf.

Jordan’s shift to the center has also been evident in some of his policy positions. Once a staunch opponent of the government’s warrantless surveillance powers, for instance, Jordan has more recently supported President Trump’s efforts to expand that authority.

Scalise and Jordan’s bitter battle to be minority leader was a rehash of their contest for the Speakership back in 2023, after McCarthy’s ouster. Scalise had initially won his party’s Speaker nomination, beating Jordan in a secret-ballot vote. But the Louisiana Republican withdrew from the race when it became clear he lacked the 218 votes to secure the gavel on the House floor. Jordan was later chosen to be the GOP’s nominee, but he repeatedly fell short of the votes needed to preside over the chamber.

Johnson ultimately stepped in to fill the void.

Jordan wrote in his Dear Colleague letter to House Republicans last week that , for too long, Republicans have “operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us.”

“This will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democratic majority,” Jordan wrote, adding that he is “battle-tested on the oversight front” and “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,” Jordan wrote. “We need a Leadership team that is active and engaged, forward-thinking and straight-shooting.”

The blue wave that crashed into midterms has Democrats on track to control roughly 260 seats in the next Congress, a massive majority that will give Jeffries a comfortable cushion to move his party’s legislative priorities.

Democrats are also vowing to conduct exhaustive investigations into Trump, his family and his administration, making Jordan the first line of defense for his ally in the White House.