House Republicans have no clear frontrunner for speaker after candidate forum

The House Republican conference held its candidate forum behind closed doors on Monday evening but emerged with no clear frontrunner.

House Republicans met in the Longworth House Office Building where nine candidates made their case to be the next speaker of the US House of Representatives.

Going into the meeting were Reps Byron Donalds (R-FL); Mike Johnson (R-LA); Jack Bergman (R-MI); Kevin Hern (R-OK); Dan Meuser (R-PA); Gary Palmer (R-AL); Pete Sessions (R-TX); Austin Scott (R-GA); Pete Sessions (R-TX); and Tom Emmer (R-MN), who also serves as House Majority Whip. But Mr Meuser dropped out early into the meeting, culling the field down to eight.

But any Republican will have to deal with thin margins in the House. Republicans have only 221 members and the House has only 433 members, meaning any Republican nominee must have 217 votes and can only afford to lose four members.

“Well, we're gonna do the vote and we've all agreed that we would do a vote, roll call vote in the basement before we go up,” Mr Hern told The Independent. “So if we go to the floor, we'll have 217 votes.”

The forum comes 20 days after eight Republicans, led by Rep Matt Gaetz (R-FL), and every Democrat voted to eject former speaker Kevin McCarthy. In addition, House conservatives blocked House Majority Leader Steve Scalise before he could go to a floor vote. Last week, Rep Jim Jordan (R-OH), failed to clinch the required votes to become speaker and Republicans voted to depose him as their nominee in a secret ballot.

“When you're five people or eight people and you undercut the majority, there's a price to pay. And that's what happened last week,” Rep Don Bacon (R-NE) told The Independent. “Let's learn our lesson and we’ll work out our differences like right now behind closed doors.”

House Republicans are set to have a vote on Tuesday for their nominee for speaker.

“We're gonna do it tomorrow morning, and you come together and you work as a team,” Mr Bacon said. “People that demand 100 per cent in what we’re doing, they fail.”

Some of the Republicans who had voted to oust Mr McCarthy and who pushed for Mr Jordan expressed optimism.

“We have a great crop of candidates,” Rep Nancy Mace (R-SC), who was one of the eight Republicans who voted to oust Mr McCarthy and supported Mr Jordan even after Mr Scalise became the nominee, told The Independent.

Similarly, Mr Gaetz praised Mr Hern and other Republicans’ plans for passing spending bills. Specifically Republicans oppose passing so-called continuing resolutions, which are stopgap spending bills that Congress passes while they pass full spending bills for a fiscal year, as well as omnibus spending bills, wherein all 12 spending bills Congress must pass are combined into one bill.

“Kevin Hern really laid out in his messaging to all the members a critique of governing by continuing resolution and omnibus bill and he has a plan to get us to those single subject spending bills,” Mr Gaetz told reporters. “I'd also note that Congressman Mike Johnson had a plan for single subject spending bills that was also quite attractive.”

The race for speaker comes as Congress faces a looming deadline when the government runs out of money on 17 November.

“If we have to bridge with the continuing resolution, that wouldn't be my preference, but we're certainly looking to go in the same direction,” Mr Gaetz told reporters.

“The longer this goes on, the less confident I am that that's gonna happen,” Rep Pat Fallon (R-TX) told The Independent.

Rep Tim Burchett (R-TN), one of the eight Republicans who voted to depose Mr McCarthy, told The Independent that he thought the House could pass a spending bill to keep the government open.

“Where was the rush when we were gone for six weeks,” he said, noting how Congress always acts like there is a rush to pass spending bills. “Comes down every year, same time every year. And yet, you know, this year all of a sudden, oh, it's a rush.”

Many Republicans seemed to feel a sense of exasperation about the fact they have not been able to coalesce around a speaker.

“I think that our own needs and desires are what are going to get us there,” Mr Sessions told The Independent after the meeting. “I think there’s only so many times you can go through this process. Go to the floor, make a mistake. And I think that that is it made us more cognizant of the need to get things done back in this room and then go present to American people with great confidence.”

When asked about whether Republicans could coalesce or anyone could win 217 votes, Rep Dan Crenshaw said simply, “I don’t know, man. I’m tired,” as he munched on a brownie.