Tom Emmer Drops Out of Speaker Race
Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) is the latest Republican to make a run for the speaker’s gavel and then fall short, with news breaking Tuesday afternoon that he was dropping out of the race.
The slim majority Republicans have in the House has led to an ongoing struggle for power, as hardliners like Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) demanded concessions from Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) before they finally let him claim the gavel on the fifteenth round of voting — only to oust him mere months later.
Since then, the House GOP caucus has done its best impression of a raging dumpster fire, with Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) being the last one to flop in his run for speaker, failing in — count ’em, one, two, three — consecutive floor votes (and losing support each round as fellow Republicans denounced the strong-arm tactics from Jordan allies) before a closed-door caucus vote ordered him to stop trying to make fetch happen.
Republican House members have been unfiltered in their anger and frustration about the festering debacle their own GOP colleagues created, and polls show even GOP primary voters don’t approve.
Emmer was one of nine Republicans who stepped forward to run for speaker in this third round, and was the frontrunner in the initial caucus votes, winning the nomination after five ballots.
However, Emmer was unable to whip enough votes to be able to win a floor vote of the full House — due at least in part to former President Donald Trump’s vocal opposition to his candidacy — and apparently decided to avoid the same humiliation Jordan had endured just days before.
On The Platform Formerly Known as Twitter, Punchbowl News’ Jake Sherman posted the news that Emmer had dropped out, following up on his previous tweets that Emmer had “briskly walked out of the Longworth House Office Building” where the GOP caucus was meeting, despite the fact that the meeting was still “ongoing.”
This is a breaking news story and has been updated.
