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House Republicans on Tuesday voted for Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota to become their latest nominee for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, with his selection coming three weeks after the historic ouster of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy.
Emmer gradually picked up support in multiple rounds of voting and finally drew a majority votes in a fifth ballot, topping the number of votes cast for Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana. That’s according to posts on social media by Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who has been the No. 4 House Republican.
Emmer, an advocate for cryptocurrencies
BTCUSD,
who has been the No. 3 House Republican, had been viewed on Monday as having the best chance of scoring the GOP nomination.
Related: Here’s how much the crypto industry has given to Tom Emmer
He received 117 votes in the fifth ballot from his fellow Republicans, while Johnson scored 97 and six lawmakers voted “present” or for others, according to multiple published reports.
The Minnesota congressman needs a simple majority of House lawmakers to back him in order to become speaker of the narrowly divided chamber, which has 221 Republicans and 212 Democrats, with two vacancies. That would be 217 votes if all House members cast ballots. So he can only afford to have four fellow Republicans vote against him if no Democrats support him.
House Republicans now are figuring out the possible next steps. More than 20 of them reportedly have indicated on Tuesday that they’d vote against Emmer on the House floor.
There is buzz over House Democrats potentially sitting out the voting on the House floor to help Emmer get elected speaker, with Democratic Rep. Dean Phillips of Minnesota saying he would do so under certain conditions.
This is third time that House GOP lawmakers have selected a speaker nominee this month. House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, a Louisiana Republican, was tapped on Oct. 11 but ended his speaker bid a day later after some colleagues refused to support him.
Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio then secured the nomination on Oct. 13, but was dropped as the nominee last Friday as GOP opposition to him grew over three rounds of voting on the House floor.
Analysts have been warning that the process of picking a new speaker is preventing the Republican-run House from addressing crucial matters, such as supporting Israel and passing a budget to avoid a government shutdown next month that could rattle markets.
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were advancing Tuesday, buoyed by stronger-than-expected results from several blue-chip companies.
