Clean their own house

House Republicans could be about to clean their own house

The minority leader contest between Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise will test just how clean of a slate lawmakers want ahead of 2028.

By Mia McCarthy

One week after suffering devastating midterm losses, Republicans in the House will decide just how thoroughly to clean their own house.

While Speaker Mike Johnson is exiting the scene in January, Tuesday’s GOP leadership elections will still pit members of the existing leadership structure against insurgents who are hoping to capitalize on the desire for a clean slate.

“Somebody’s got to get fired,” said Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-Ind.), who said he is backing outsiders in the three top races “because we got our butts handed to us.”

At the top of that slate is Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, a 20-year House veteran and a well-known face of the GOP’s hard-right wing who nevertheless has never served in the senior leadership ranks. He is facing off for minority leader against Steve Scalise of Louisiana, the sitting majority leader who has held the party’s No. 2 or No. 3 slot since 2014.

Jordan is pledging a fresh look for the House GOP’s top echelon and has swiped at Johnson and Scalise for having too often “operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us.”

But Scalise is seeking to fend off the throw-the-bums-out sentiment by drawing on his experience as a fundraiser and a set of personal relationships he has closely tended — some for a decade or more. He’s expected to benefit as well from the distrust of Jordan held in some pockets of the conference.

His pitch to members has been relatively simple: that he is battle-tested from one Democratic takeover, in 2018, and is best equipped to do it again.

Rep. Mike Haridopolos of Florida said he saw no “bad options” on the leadership ticket but said he was convinced Scalise knows “how to go from the minority to the majority” and also has long experience going head-to-head with Democrats on the floor.

“I think we need, more than ever, clarity of message and clarity of, this is what our agenda will be,” he said in an interview.

The old-vs.-new dynamic is at play in downballot races, as well. Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota is looking to remain GOP whip, effectively moving from the No. 3 to No. 2 spot in the new Republican minority. He’s up against Rep. August Pfluger, an ambitious Texan who chairs the conservative Republican Study Committee — a well-known steppingstone for leadership aspirants.

Rep. Lisa McClain of Michigan is similarly looking to stay as Republican conference chair, which will be the No. 3 post, but faces competition from Reps. Erin Houchin of Indiana and Greg Steube of Florida. They are looking to capitalize on grumbling about McClain’s handling of party messaging.

Stutzman — who is backing Pfluger and Houchin in addition to Jordan — said the scale of the GOP losses argued for complete turnover in the senior party ranks: “There’s got to be a change. Look at college football. I mean, if you lose, coaches get fired.”

Several other House Republicans who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the secret-ballot race also said they wanted a fresh start — especially after Johnson, Scalise and Emmer centered the GOP’s case for reelection on a policy bill passed more than a year ago.

“We didn’t drive a good strong agenda, and I think Jordan is pointing that out,” one of them said. “He is a very good standard-bearer for conservative policies, and he’s quite credible all over the country in advocating for that.”

That’s not to say every Republican’s decision is coming down to old guard vs. new, with some saying in interviews they were planning to split their tickets. Some said they would support Jordan and Emmer, while others also said they were voting for Scalise and Pfluger.

Tuesday’s winners are expected to start charting a course back to governing relevance as Democrats enjoy the largest House majority won by any party in more than 30 years. They will also have to navigate the final two years of Donald Trump’s presidency after voters delivered a firm rebuke of his leadership over the past two years.

Trump has not taken sides in the race, nor has Johnson.

“We have two extraordinary guys that are running to lead the conference,” the outgoing speaker said Monday. “We’ll see how that shakes out.”

Neither Jordan or Scalise has telegraphed any plans to separate the House GOP from the unpopular president, and most GOP members said that debate would play out on the presidential campaign trail — not on Capitol Hill.

Instead, they said, they wanted their new leaders to focus on positioning the party for a return to the House majority and clawing back some of the 42-and-counting seats they lost to Democrats this year.

“The point of being in the minority is to get to the majority,” Rep. Nick LaLota of New York, who narrowly eked out a win in his Long Island district and declined to say who he would support.

Others have concluded that what happened last week was simply not House leaders’ fault.

“There are people who are going to blame the losses last week on leadership or bad messaging or whatever,” said Rep. Mike Simpson of Idaho, who is backing the three sitting leaders. “The reality is, there’s nothing that we could have done that could have stopped this blue tsunami.”