| Party | Candidate | Votes | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Democratic | Hakeem Jeffries (NY 8) | 212 | 49.1% |
| Republican | Jim Jordan (OH 4) | 200 | 46.3% |
| Republican | Steve Scalise (LA 1) | 7 | 1.6% |
| Republican | Kevin McCarthy (CA 20) | 6 | 1.4% |
| Republican | Lee Zeldin | 3 | 0.7% |
| Republican | Tom Cole (OK 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Tom Emmer (MN 6) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Mike Garcia (CA 27) | 1 | 0.2% |
| Republican | Thomas Massie (KY 4) | 1 | 0.2% |
Note: official party nominees in bold.
They would have an even worse chance of winning than Jeffries.
The Speakership is not an award or purely ceremonial position. The Speaker is a political operative. Their job is to unite a majority and keep it united during subsequent legislative votes. Winning the gavel is just the first test. If they can't consistently get a majority to vote for stuff, their gavel is useless.
That's why Democrats won't vote for a GOP Speaker unless they strike some sort of bipartisan deal about future legislation. In other words, Democrats will support whoever can offer something to Democrats in exchange.
An apolitical outsider offers nothing to anybody. They have no chance at becoming Speaker for that reason. And if they accidentally stumbled into the job, they would be unable to pass legislation - so why bother giving them the job?
You're describing the "majority leader" and the "majority whip". Not the speaker.
The speaker's role can and should be akin to that of a judge, with the majority and minority leaders as litigants.
That's not the actual role of the Speaker. They are, and always have been, responsible for wheeling, dealing, and cajoling other members in order to pass legislation. They are the carrot to the Whip's stick.
To take one example, Nancy Pelosi was a very effective Speaker but she was not a dispassionate "judge". She was in every way a power broker, like Tip O'Neill (another very effective Speaker).
If the Speakership worked as you suggest, with no real power to push an agenda, then few people would want the job. It would be like the President of the Senate (aka Vice-President), a job which is usually a consolation prize.
Nancy Pelosi didn't need to take a dispassionate role; she had the support of a partisan majority. Same thing with Tip O'Neill and the overwhelming majority of past speakers.
The last speaker only had a partisan majority because Matt Gaetz managed to drag the party to the right.
The next speaker will only enjoy a partisan majority if Matt Gaetz manages to drag the party even further to the right.
We disarm Matt Gaetz, and stop the rightward swing of the Republican Party by making the speakership an apolitical role.
Hakeem Jeffries should be the one announcing and supporting our "hero" candidate.
If Matt Gaetz could drag his party to the right, then Jim Jordan would already be Speaker. The reason Jim Jordan isn't Speaker tonight is that some members of the GOP are resisting further moves towards extremism.
If they can ultimately be won over to extremism, then Jordan won't need support from Democrats.
If they prefer bipartisanship to extremism, then they must find a Speaker who will actually work with Democrats.
But bipartisanship means supporting legislation that advances at least some Democratic priorities. "Stopping the rightward swing of the Republican Party" and "making Matt Gaetz less influential in the GOP" is not a Democratic priority. At all. Democrats don't care about internal GOP squabbles. If anything, painting the GOP as extremist would help Democrats in 2024.
Finally, nothing in the House is apolitical. So supporting an "apolitical" candidate doesn't help Democratic priorities either, since an outsider "hero" is powerless to push through any legislation, much less push through something that will help Democrats.
It absolutely should be. We should be sabotaging right-wing extremists any chance we can get.
Democrats sabotage right-wing Republican extremists by trying to get people to vote for Democrats.
Not by trying to get people to vote for different Republicans. Or otherwise help Republicans make themselves more appealing.
You've got it backwards. Gaetz is the one making the Republican party more appealing to Republicans. Undercutting Gaetz makes the Republican party less appealing, not more.
Democrats don't care whether the Republican party is appealing to Republicans.
Democrats only care whether the Republican party is appealing to voters in general. And they believe, for good reason, that people like Gaetz make the Republican party less appealing to voters in general.