Jordan winning over holdouts but still has work to reach magic number 217 votes for speakership

GOP Rep. Jim Jordan, known for his firebrand personality during high-profile congressional investigations, showed his diplomatic side in one-on-one meetings with his detractors Monday as he works to close the vote deficit he had after the chamber's GOP conference election for the next House speaker.

"I felt good walking into the conference. I feel even better now," Jordan said following the latest House GOP conference meeting on Monday evening. "We've got a few more people we're going to talk to, listen to, and then we'll have a vote tomorrow."

The full House vote on Jordan's nomination for the speakership is scheduled to take place Tuesday afternoon as the Ohio lawmaker continues his outreach to fellow members of the chamber's Republican conference who had backed other candidates in the hopes of bringing them onboard to clinch the House speakership.

Jordan told reporters Monday that he was "real close" to securing enough votes to win a simple majority on the House floor.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, endorsed by former President Trump, will need 217 votes to become the next speaker.

There are now two vacancies in the House, so a maximum of 433 members would be voting on Tuesday – 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats.

Jordan won the nomination at the GOP conference meeting Friday, but he was 65 votes short of winning a simple majority on the House floor.

"I feel real good about the momentum we have and I think we're real close," Jordan told reporters Monday on Capitol Hill. "We'll go to the floor tomorrow. It's not about pressing anybody, it's just about we've got to have a speaker."

The House has been without a speaker for nearly two weeks.

Jordan picked up some high profile endorsements throughout Monday from Republican House members who initially did not support him in the GOP conference's secret ballot election, including Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Turner, Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Mike McCaul and Armed Services Committee Chairman Mike Rogers.

Other conference members including Reps. Vern Buchanan, of Florida, and Rob Wittman, of Virginia, also endorsed Jordan on Monday.

He still faces some opposition from members, like Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon, who have vowed to support recently ousted House Speaker Kevin McCarthy on the first ballot of voting on the House floor.

Still, McCarthy, R-Calif., predicted that Jordan can win the speakership on the floor.

"I’m doing everything I can to help him be able to become speaker,” McCarthy, who was ousted from the speakership on Oct. 3, said Monday on Fox News.

Jordan wrote a letter to his colleagues Monday and pledged to unite the Republican conference, which has essentially been divided between the majority of members and a group on the far right. Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., a conservative, introduced the motion to vacate the chair which passed the House on Oct. 3 with support from 8 Republicans and all of the Democrats present in the chamber for the vote.

Now that Jordan is the frontrunner for the speakership, there are quite a few remaining moderate Republican holdouts.

"The role of a speaker is to bring all Republicans together. That’s what I intend to do," he wrote in the letter. "I will tirelessly work to defend and expand our majority and and help every Republican member back at home."

Jordan said that the "country and our conference cannot afford us attacking each other right now. It is time we unite to get back to work on behalf of the American people."