Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, got thumped in the race for minority leader by outgoing Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif. Don’t sleep on the results though — take a look at the numbers.
McCarthy won 159 votes, more than enough to win the leadership role. Jordan carried 43, which coincidentally lines up roughly with the number of members of the cantankerous House Freedom Caucus (the caucus keeps its exact membership numbers private).
Compare that to the 2006 race for minority leader, when it was an Ohio Republican who won. Rep. John Boehner absolutely spanked a conservative darling from Indiana named Mike Pence, 168 to 27. It was shellacking and, as the Washington Post reported at the time, “a setback for conservative activists who tried to wrest control of the party by arguing that it had lost its ideological moorings.”
A dozen years later, Pence is now vice president and Boehner is a weed lobbyist. Today the ideological moorings have shifted much further to the right because of President Trump, to be sure. But any conservative consistency coming out of this administration comes by and large from the office of the vice president.
The point isn’t that Jordan is destined for an office in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building. The point is that Jordan and his insurgent conservatives have more momentum than Pence did in 2006.
The silver lining of this defeat for the anti-establishment Freedom Caucus is its growing influence.
In the short-term, caucus members will work with McCarthy to oppose any liberal bills brought forward by presumptive House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. But if Republicans take back control while McCarthy is leader, he is certainly not a lock for speaker of the House.
