US House Republicans to pick Speaker candidate in bid to end impasse

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Republicans in the US House of Representatives are set to select a candidate for Speaker of the House on Tuesday, in a renewed push to break the stalemate that has paralysed Congress for nearly a month.

House Republicans will meet behind closed doors in Washington on Tuesday morning to vote for a nominee from a field of eight candidates who entered the race after the party ended its support for Ohio congressman Jim Jordan’s candidacy.

Jordan, a hardline conservative and ally of Donald Trump, was dropped after he failed three times to be elected Speaker in public votes on the House floor last week.

The House has now been without a Speaker for three weeks, after a rebellion led by rightwing Florida congressman Matt Gaetz removed Kevin McCarthy from the role earlier this month.

Republicans have struggled to coalesce around a successor, in a failure of governance that has exposed sharp divisions in the party and threatened US political leadership at home and abroad.

The White House last week called on Congress to endorse a massive national security package that would provide billions of dollars in additional aid to Ukraine and Israel. But the House cannot vote on new legislation until a Speaker is selected.

Congress is also facing the looming threat of a costly government shutdown in less than a month, unless lawmakers can agree on a new plan to fund the federal government.

Democrats refused to endorse Jordan’s candidacy last week, and because Republicans control the House by a razor-thin margin, the Ohio congressman could only afford to lose a handful of votes from Republican benches. In the end, more than 20 fellow Republicans voted against him for Speaker.

Any new Republican nominee is likely to face a similar challenge, given the splits within the party. Steve Scalise, a Louisiana congressman and House majority leader, was seen as a more moderate option than Jordan — but abandoned his own Speaker bid in the face of opposition from the party’s right flank.

A successful candidate will somehow need to overcome the party’s sharp divides and appeal to both ultra conservatives and more traditional Republicans, including those who reject Trump’s unfounded claims that the 2020 presidential election was rigged against him.

Trump, the frontrunner in the Republican primary contest, endorsed Jordan for Speaker. But now Trump said he was “trying to stay above” the speakership competition. He told reporters at a campaign stop in New Hampshire on Monday that he had “spoken to just about all the candidates”, saying they were “terrific people”.

Those now running for Speaker include Tom Emmer, a Minnesota Republican and House majority whip who previously ran the National Republican Congressional Committee, the party’s campaign arm. Emmer is seen on Capitol Hill as the favourite to be the party’s newest nominee, but faces competition from seven other Republicans, including Kevin Hern of Oklahoma and Byron Donalds of Florida.