House Republicans gather on Tuesday morning to try, after three unfruitful weeks, to select a speaker candidate who can actually win the gavel.
On Monday night, they met to hear pitches from all the candidates and even shrunk the field by one.
Rep. Mike Johnson, one of the candidates making a bid this time around, is signaling optimism for the process.
“I think we’re building consensus around the idea that we have to move forward again. That was gratifying. It was a very good esprit de corps in the room,” he said Monday night after the lengthy candidates forum.
He anticipates “a long day,” which could be an understatement.
Candidate recap: Here are the eight candidates heading into Tuesday morning’s closed-door GOP Conference meeting
Rep. Kevin Hern (Okla.)
Rep. Austin Scott (Ga.)
Rep. Jack Bergman (Mich.)
Rep. Pete Sessions (Texas)
Rep. Tom Emmer (Minn.)
Rep. Mike Johnson (La.)
Rep. Byron Donalds (Fla.)
Rep. Gary Palmer (Ala.)
Running to runoff: How will the House GOP get from eight candidates down to one? Voting and voting and voting again.
The House Republican Conference rules outline a system of repeated runoff ballots. The candidate with the lowest number of votes from the previous round gets dropped. That repeats until someone has a majority.
That means there could be seven or eight rounds of voting — if no one runs away early with a majority.
And before they even start voting, there will be nominating speeches. Those are capped for time but will still add up to at least 45 minutes of talking before the first ballot kicks off.
Get comfortable. It is going to be a long day.
Last week Speaker Pro Tempore Patrick McHenry said that he’d like to see the action move straight from conference to the floor once there is a nominee. But he didn’t make promises for a same-day floor vote.
Jordain Carney and Daniella Diaz contributed to this report.
