Republican representatives have elected Jim Jordan as their leader in the US House of Representatives, following decisive defeats in last week's elections. Jordan defeated colleague Steve Scalise 106 to 73 in a secret ballot, with his victory first reported on Tuesday afternoon by Punchbowl News.
The vote was held behind closed doors, and Jordan will lead the Republicans from January. He replaces current House Speaker Mike Johnson, who stated he would not run for re-election as the GOP cedes control to the Democrats in the new year. Jordan, a Republican hardliner from Ohio, assumes the role of House Minority Leader for the final two years of Donald Trump's presidency.
A congressional veteran with nearly 20 years of service, Jordan currently serves as chairman of the House Judiciary Committee and is known as a combative representative and staunch ally of Donald Trump. He was the first chairman of the far-right Freedom Caucus in the lower house. As Minority Leader, Jordan will be the GOP's chief spokesperson and negotiator in the House, but he will be constrained by the majority of more than 80 seats that the Democrats will hold. He will also have to manage Donald Trump's expectations while his party is in the minority.
Democrat Hakeem Jeffries, the current Minority Leader, is expected to become the next Speaker of the House when his party takes control in the new year. Democrats otherwise view Mississippi as their eighth win in an election cycle in which Republicans suffered a heavy defeat in Congress. According to data with 97 per cent of votes counted, Democrat Scott Colom leads incumbent Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith by 2,575 votes in the race for the US Senate in Mississippi. The state recognises all ballots received by 10 November, provided they were postmarked on election day. On Capitol Hill today, Hyde-Smith told journalists that she felt 'very optimistic' despite the deficit.
Jordan's past has also been the subject of criticism. Between 1987 and 1995, he served as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, where he worked alongside Richard Strauss, a team doctor accused of sexual abuse. An independent report commissioned by the university in 2019 concluded that Strauss had sexually abused at least 177 male student-patients. Jordan has repeatedly denied any knowledge of Strauss's conduct, but former wrestlers testified that Jordan was directly informed of the doctor's inappropriate behaviour. Earlier this month, four former OSU wrestlers publicly condemned Jordan, saying his inaction made him unfit to be Speaker of the House. Former wrestler Mike Schyck told NBC News: 'Do you really want a man in that position who decided not to stand up for his people?' and 'Is that the kind of character you want for Speaker of the House?'
Jordan was also under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee. In 2021, he was called to testify before the committee, which was investigating the 6 January Capitol attack. The committee identified him as a 'significant player' in the president's attempts to overturn the election. Jordan refused to comply with the subpoena, calling it an 'unprecedented and improper demand to investigate the basis for a colleague's decision on a matter pending before the House of Representatives'. The committee referred the representative to the ethics committee for investigation, which found that he had violated House rules of conduct but ultimately did not take disciplinary action against him.
