Optimism among House Republicans ahead of the speaker election: "The morale of the room seems higher"

On Monday night, all of the Republican candidates for speaker of the House of Representatives spoke to their colleagues to convince them to support their respective candidacies. With the votes already cast, all of them hope to have been able to convince as many Republicans as possible to win the nomination on Tuesday night, when the Conference will vote on its new nominee after the failed candidacies of Jim Jordan and Steve Scalise.

As reported by Voz Media, up to nine legislators are competing for the Republican nomination: Jack Bergman (MI), Byron Donalds (FL), Tom Emmer (MN), Kevin Hern (OK), Mike Johnson (LA), Dan Meuser (PA, ) Gary Palmer (AL), Austin Scott (GA) and Pete Sessions (TX). However, Meuser used his time to decline his candidacy, thus leaving the election among the remaining eight.

Monday night, as happened with Jordan and Scalise before, each spoke in a closed-door meeting, trying to drum up as many supporters as possible.

In the preview, some of them, like Emmer and Hern, carried out a kind of preview by anticipating some of the objectives they would pursue if elected. The first, the highest-ranking member in the race, spoke of fostering a “culture of teamwork, communication and respect,” to “take advantage of the moments that brought us success, learn from our mistakes and continue fighting for each and every one of you and for our Republican majority.”

Hern went a little further and wrote out a report card in which he detailed everything that, in his opinion, was not done correctly in the past. “If we want to obtain better results, we must adopt a new approach,” he concluded in the letter in which he mentioned government financing, the budget and immigration.

After the meeting, behind closed doors

When the Republican Conference meeting ended, some members slipped in some details that emerged behind closed doors. One of them was Matt Rosendale (R-MT), one of the congressmen who pushed for McCarthy’s impeachment. As stated, the eight candidates promised to honor their predecessor’s intentions and not bring a general spending bill to the House floor.

In turn, Emmer described the meeting positively, stating that “it was a great conversation.” “I love it, all the members were involved, my colleagues are all running. It was great. I have stated my case. We will see what the numbers say tomorrow,” he added.

“The morale in the room seems higher”

Nick Lalota (R-NY), who has only been a congressman for a few months after winning the seat vacated by Lee Zeldin, said the chances of electing a new speaker were “slightly better than 50-50.”

“The morale in the room seems higher. The hope that we will do so [elect a speaker] this week seems greater than in previous weeks. There seems to be some sense of commitment in the room. There’s a little less insistence that it has to be your personal victory. They are positive signs,” he declared outside the candidates’ forum.

Meuser withdrew from the race for House speaker

The Pennsylvania congressman used his allotted time to confirm to his colleagues that he was declining his candidacy for Republican speaker of the House of Representatives.

“Well, a couple of reasons. One, I actually made some engagements with President Trump to help run his campaign in Pennsylvania. That was reason number one. Reason number two, I was late. And we had some other great candidates. And I’m just trying to make the House Speaker’s office as effective as possible,” he explained.

Bergman is running for a single term

The retired lieutenant general is serving his fourth term in the Lower House and assured that, if elected speaker of the House, he would only hold the gavel for one term: two years.

“We don’t show up as a soldier for life. We take on every battle, we move forward and we’re not commanders for life. You rotate. And I think the right thing for the American people, but also for this House, is to have a Speaker who can stabilize and move forward in 437 days more or less because in that period it will be the 119th Congress,” he told reporters on Capitol Hill.