BREAKING: Jim Jordan nominated for Speaker of the House

Jordan won in a 124-81 vote during the closed-door session. It was a secret ballot and Jordan faced contender Austin Scott. A second secret ballot on support for Jordan shows that members would support Jordan 152-55. This is far closer than anyone else has gotten.

The vote will have to be made on the House floor where members will not be able to vote secretly and will have to say publicly whether they support Jordan or stand in his way.

Jordan has been a popular choice among the America First base, and was the most obvious choice for Speaker after Steve Scalise withdrew his name from consideration. Scalise had won a vote in a closed-door meeting by 113-99, but several congressmembers had said they would bring Jordan's name up on the floor during a vote.

Jordan has received the backing of Marjorie Taylor Greene, Elise Stefanik, and President Donald Trump.

Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who endured 15 rounds of voting before he became Speaker in January, was ousted last week when Florida's Matt Gaetz used the Jeffersonian motion to call for his seat to be vacated. After a motion to table that motion failed, a vote was brought to the floor and the entirety of the Democrat caucus followed Gaetz's lead to remove McCarthy from the speakership. Not a single Democrat voted for McCarthy to retain his position, despite the fact that among the House GOP, he was the only one who was actually willing to work with them on legislation.

What triggered Gaetz's motion was the passage of a 45-day stop gap funding bill that kept the government operational—and US troops receiving a paycheck—for 45 days while the House sorted out a different budget funding bill. No funds for Ukraine were present in that bill, but Gaetz alleged that McCarthy had been working on a "side deal" for Ukraine funding.

The House has been without a Speaker since the ouster, and the House Republicans have been working behind the scenes to try to get a Speaker nomination that would gain the 217 votes necessary to take the seat. Whoever is nominated will not be able to count on a single Democrat vote.