Jim Jordan has spent much of the past year out of the House GOP spotlight. Don’t expect that to last.
The Ohio Republican rose to prominence as a headline-grabbing conservative firebrand, then saw that reputation work against him when he made a failed bid for the speakership in 2023. Since then he has been supporting President Donald Trump as chair of the House Judiciary Committee and otherwise staying out of Speaker Mike Johnson’s way.
But now as frustrations with Johnson’s leadership rise inside the House GOP, and expectations grow that the Republican majority’s days might be numbered, speculation is brewing that the 62-year-old former wrestling star is preparing another push for the top leadership ranks.
“I’ve seen a concerted effort now for him to work with everybody and to travel the country,” said Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-N.J.), a fellow Judiciary member. Should Jordan make another run, he said, “I think his base of appeal will be stronger and bigger.”
The open chatter that has erupted around Jordan and other possible contenders for the top House GOP spot — including current No. 2 leader Steve Scalise and No. 3 leader Tom Emmer — has been conspicuous, especially considering there is no vacancy to fill. Johnson insists he will retain the House majority in the November midterms and continue as speaker.
But other House Republicans believe that is growing more unlikely given the political headwinds they face and the general belief Johnson would step down from leadership rather than continue as minority leader. So they have been taking notice of the quiet moves already being made by possible candidates to build support among the rank-and-file.
And while Jordan has remained on the sidelines of recent high-profile intra-GOP feuds, he’s spent plenty of time helping vulnerable members on the campaign trail and, more recently, helping Trump wrangle potential conservative defectors on a key upcoming spy-powers vote.
Asked about mounting another run should Johnson step down after November, Jordan declined to rule it out in an interview.
“I am totally focused on keeping the majority, which I think we’re going to do,” he said.
The last time Jordan took a shot at the speakership was after then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy was forced out of the position in 2023. Jordan won a plurality of votes on several secret internal ballots but failed to reach the necessary 218 votes. Dozens of more moderate members opposed his bid, most believing he was simply too combative to govern effectively.
But things could be different in November. For one, in a race for minority leader, Jordan would only need to win over a majority of House Republicans — not a majority of the entire chamber.
And while someone with a reputation as a “legislative terrorist” — as former Speaker John Boehner once called Jordan — might not make for a great speaker in the eyes of some members, leading a House minority can require a more confrontational approach.
One Republican lawmaker granted anonymity to speak candidly noted that a bad midterm showing could actually work to Jordan’s advantage by culling some of his moderate opposition.
“His base is in rock-hard GOP districts,” the member said. “The worse the night the fewer the number of ‘never Jordans’ who come to vote.”
But that member was among several who recognized that Jordan has also taken pains in the two-and-a-half years since he lost to build support in new corners of the House GOP: “He is working every day to lay the groundwork.”
Republicans have asked Jordan to come to their districts and help with both big- and small-dollar donations, one person familiar with the outreach said. Jordan in the interview noted he was about to head to California to campaign with Rep. Vince Fong — a protege of McCarthy’s who is hardly considered a conservative rabble-rouser.
“He’s definitely broadened his circle and his approach and his appeal,” said a swing-district GOP lawmaker, who like the others was granted anonymity to comment on a leadership race that has yet to actually materialize.
Should Johnson step down, the member said, Jordan could be an acceptable successor: “I’m not against it.”
Among Jordan’s admirers is McCarthy himself, who soundly beat Jordan in the last House GOP election for a minority leader in 2018. The two men then formed an alliance that persisted even after a small group of conservative hard-liners tried to block McCarthy from the speakership. When the group rallied behind Jordan as an alternative, Jordan rejected the idea and instead gave a nominating speech for McCarthy.
In an interview, the former speaker called Jordan one of the party’s “best chairmen” and said he “would have done an excellent job” with the gavel had he been elected in 2023.
“Some people would go and quit if they didn’t win,” McCarthy said. “I watched him go help and elect people who were not good to him, who he had every reason to try to go and defeat then but he didn’t.”
Jordan denied he’s made any change in strategy. “I’ve always helped our colleagues,” he said, when asked if he’d stepped up his campaign trail work in anticipation of a leadership run.
What’s harder to deny is that Jordan has taken a much lower-key approach to internal House politics since Trump — a longtime ally — returned to the White House last year. That change has been on display during the recent fight over Department of Homeland Security funding.
After the Senate passed a bill last month that left out key immigration enforcement agencies, Jordan did not immediately join Johnson and other House leaders in trashing the bill, instead noting the upsides of the plan: Democrats didn’t succeed in hamstringing enforcement tactics, and Republicans would have their own opportunity to pass a party-line bill delivering the funding.
It ended up being a canny approach after Johnson backed down last week and agreed to advance the Senate-passed measure as the only workable alternative. In a nod to the conservative uproar, Jordan conceded the two-track approach set a bad precedent in a Wednesday radio interview. But his comments were only lightly critical at a moment when many members were furious that Johnson had made a U-turn on the bill.
“So the House said no to it,” he said. “All us Republicans voted against what the Senate had sent.”
Jordan is playing an even more crucial role to ease through the quick reauthorization of a key surveillance program ahead of an April 20 deadline at the behest of the White House. That’s a flip from two years ago, when Jordan opposed renewing the program and eyed a push for “real reform” to protect Americans from warrantless spying in 2026.
Inside a closed-door House GOP meeting last month, Jordan stood alongside top Republican leaders and briefed members on why they should support a straight extension. That created friction with some of his traditional hard-liner allies, some of whom stood up and pointed out Jordan’s 180, according to two members granted anonymity to discuss the private meeting.
“The old Jim Jordan wouldn’t have done this,” one of the members said. “It’s clear that he sold out in order to keep chairmanship or to move up in leadership.”
Jordan said in an interview he has not changed his position because the program, known as Section 702, is “fundamentally different because of the reforms we all worked on and got in place” in prior renewals.
“So for a short-term extension, while we’re in the middle of a military conflict in Iran, that the commander in chief thinks makes sense for the short term, I think that’s fine,” he said.
Jordan’s spy-powers stance has surprised even Democrats, including Rep. Jamie Raskin of Maryland, the top Judiciary Democrat. Raskin opposes renewing the 702 program without new guardrails, but he credited his counterpart as an “able and effective political actor” inside the GOP who has his pulse on the party agenda.
“I don’t know whether he has traveled more towards the center of the Republican conference or the Republican conference has traveled more towards Jim Jordan,” Raskin said. “But in any event, it feels like he’s pretty close to the center of gravity right now.”
Meredith Lee Hill contributed to this report.
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