Rabid Jim Jordan Fans Go Nuts on Republicans Who Let Him Down
Several House Republicans claim they’re being harassed by people who support Jim Jordan for House speaker.
Representative Jim Jordan’s bid for speaker of the House was always a long shot, but his allies may have doomed him.
Along with a pressure campaign orchestrated by Sean Hannity’s production team at Fox, Jordan’s camp is allegedly (and often anonymously) attempting to strong-arm his critics in hopes of reversing some two dozen holdouts against the Ohio Republican.
Tactics, which Jordan himself has disavowed, have so far included veiled threats and leveraging outright lies about political allegiances, according to several Republicans.
Jordan has so far lost two floor votes for the gavel, bleeding more votes with each run. On Tuesday, the ultraconservative lost the ballot by 20 votes. During Wednesday’s vote, he lost two more, suggesting that something behind the scenes was going haywire.
Several of Jordan’s detractors took to the press to make their grievances with the unsavory gambit known.
Representative Don Bacon told Politico that his wife had received several anonymous emails and texts warning her husband to back Jordan, reading things like, “Why is your husband causing chaos by not supporting Jim Jordan?” and claiming that Bacon was a “failure” and not a “team player.”
“Threatening us does not work,” Bacon later told Newsmax.
Representative Carlos Giménez told NBC he has been the target of robocalls over his opposition to Jordan’s candidacy.
In an interview with CBS, Giménez added that Jordan’s camp was weaponizing misinformation and “total lies” to sway opinion, including claiming that the Florida congressman would cast his vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.
“It doesn’t work on me. What you’ve done now is you’ve cemented my position,” Giménez said, calling the behavior “very disturbing.”
Other Republicans agreed, doubling down on their previous positions.
“The one thing that will never work with me—if you try to pressure me, if you try to threaten me, then I shut off,” Representative Mario Díaz-Balart told Politico.
“I don’t think it’s been helpful to Jim,” Representative Byron Donalds told C-SPAN, referring to Jordan’s whip operation. “Some of the stuff just is not going to move these members. As a matter of fact, it only makes them harder to convince.”
As Jordan preps for another ballot for House speaker Thursday at noon, his Republican opponents warn that he will only continue to bleed more votes, revealing to CNN’s Melanie Zanona that they have been staggering their “no” votes against Jordan to illustrate growing opposition.