Jim Jordan Elected House Minority Leader, Beating Steve Scalise 106 to 73

House Republicans elected Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio as their next minority leader on Tuesday, November 10, choosing a leader from outside the current leadership team a week after losing their House majority in the midterm elections. Jordan defeated Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana by 106 votes to 73 in a closed door vote held by secret ballot, sources in the room told Fox News Digital. The Washington Sun also reported Jordan's win on Tuesday. Fox News Digital reported loud and sustained applause from the hallway when Jordan's win became official.

The vote followed a candidate forum on Tuesday morning, where Republican lawmakers questioned the candidates running for leadership posts. Sources inside the room told Fox News Digital that Scalise and Jordan both pitched themselves as the person who could unify the conference, and both signaled they would give lawmakers a wide berth to vote their districts. The session was largely cordial, Fox News Digital was told, and members asked how each man would unify the conference after the midterm losses and how he would handle leaks to journalists. The voting body was made up of sitting House Republicans and Republican members-elect projected to win their races in last week's midterms.

A vote for change

Jordan, 62, has chaired the House Judiciary Committee for the last four years and co-founded the House Freedom Caucus in 2015, serving as its first chairman. Scalise, 61, has held senior Republican leadership posts since 2014, serving first as party whip and then as majority leader. The contest opened on November 4, when Speaker Mike Johnson told staff he would not run for minority leader in the new Congress.

Rep. Warren Davidson of Ohio, a Jordan supporter, told Fox News Digital: "I personally like Steve, but he's been in leadership since before I was in Congress. And Jim Jordan, while he's a leader in Congress, he hasn't been part of the leadership team." Rep. Scott Fitzgerald of Wisconsin told Fox News Digital that Jordan "understands what we're up against" and called his ability to communicate unrivaled in the House.

What Jordan promised, and the job ahead

In the letter announcing his candidacy, Jordan wrote: "I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats' playbook. I know what it will take to lead our conference in the minority, to stay unified, and to coordinate and calibrate our response to the Democrats' tactics." Scalise argued that his fundraising and political operation, and his years traveling to swing districts, left him best placed to win back the majority. The Washington Sun reported that Democrats are poised to hold a sizable majority after picking up more than 40 seats.

Jordan takes the reins of the House Republican Conference as minority leader in January and will lead it for the next two years. Representative Hakeem Jeffries of New York is expected to become speaker when the new Congress is sworn in on January 3. Jordan's first tasks include defending President Donald Trump as House Democrats prepare a round of investigations, keeping a fractured conference unified, avoiding a government shutdown, and negotiating on the debt ceiling, where he has traditionally insisted on major spending cuts. Before the vote, the Associated Press reported that the winner would inherit a historically small House Republican conference and that leading the party back to a majority in 2028 would be a stiff climb. President Trump had not publicly weighed in on the race before the vote.