Grassroots conservatives nationwide are rallying behind Rep. Jim Jordan (R-OH) as he seeks to lock down the speakership in a Tuesday afternoon floor vote, with activists “melting” phone lines with respectful pleas to GOP members of Congress to unify and end the conference’s divisions by finally electing Jordan as Speaker of the House.
Top conservative activists are rallying the base nationwide, and calls are pouring into the Capitol switchboard and specific offices helping fuel a wave of breaks Jordan’s way in the final day before the vote on Tuesday.
“I haven’t seen anything like this in years,” one top House GOP aide told Breitbart News. “They are literally melting the phone lines. Some offices’ numbers are permanently busy. Thousands and thousands of people are calling their members of Congress demanding Jordan for Speaker.”
Jordan’s grassroots strength is no surprise — he was the founding chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and has long been on the forefront of issues motivating the Republican base nationally — but the overwhelming level and organized nature of his support from conservative leaders nationwide have certainly caught some beltway insiders by surprise.
Throughout the day on Monday, seemingly one by one, previous critics of a Jordan speakership bid have fallen in line amid a barrage of phone calls from grassroots activists urging unity behind Jordan as the GOP conference nominee for Speaker — and as Jordan has worked the inside game too with personal phone calls to many of them. The first one to back Jordan after previous opposition was Rep. Mike Rogers (R-AL), the chairman of the powerful House Armed Services Committee. Rogers’ office was over the weekend and early on Monday flooded with phone calls pressuring him to back Jordan — and meanwhile Rogers and Jordan had multiple conversations between themselves — and then Rogers backed down and endorsed Jordan for Speaker. Conservatives have been thanking Rogers all day since.
Grassroots conservatives have basically repeated the same strategy all day with other holdouts and to great success as people such as Reps. Ken Calvert (R-CA), Ann Wagner (R-MO), Rob Wittman (R-VA), Vern Buchanan (R-FL), and more have rallied to Jordan’s side.
But again, the level of grassroots interest across the board in this matter is essentially unparalleled:
Even members of Congress are joining the action, as Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) has been calling into Spaces events on X — the platform formerly known as Twitter — encouraging positive grassroots calls to members asking them to help unify the GOP behind Jordan as Speaker.
Meanwhile, conservatives keep pushing the message of party unity — Jordan winning the speaker’s gavel on the first ballot on Tuesday would send a clear message of unity — in their messaging:
Jordan still has a long way to go until Tuesday’s noon vote, but he does seem to have made up significant ground over the weekend and on Monday as conservatives have fueled the energy into his Speakership bid. For Jordan to win, he can only afford a handful of defections — if the House is at full attendance, since there are two vacancies, Jordan needs 217 votes which means with 221 Republicans he can afford to lose no more than four GOP members — but some are beginning to think it is possible that Jordan may get to a unanimous GOP vote on the House floor Tuesday.
Brendan Buck, a former adviser to former Speaker Paul Ryan, even suggested it is possible that Jordan gets such a unanimous vote:
Either way, though, a win is a win for grassroots conservatives and if they can elect Jordan to the Speaker’s chair it would be arguably their biggest win since they elected Donald Trump president of the United States in 2016. Then, all this grassroots energy behind Jordan for Speaker can help House Republicans pursue their agenda — and focus on policy victories with Jordan leading the way for the conference. Jordan would very likely be able to marshal this kind of support for key GOP legislative priorities and deliver major wins against the Democrat-controlled U.S. Senate and Democrat President Joe Biden’s White House.
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