Tom Emmer’s candidacy for House speaker role torpedoed by Trump and conservative Republicans

In the end an attempt by Republican Party nominee Tom Emmer to become speaker of the US House of Representative lasted little more than four hours.

He was adopted as the party’s official candidate after several rounds of voting just after midday in Washington on Tuesday. But, by just before 4.30pm, he was gone.

His candidacy was torpedoed by conservative members and the intervention of the former president Donald Trump, who condemned him as a “globalist” and a republican in name only – a RINO.

On Tuesday night, Republicans put forward Mike Johnson, a congressman from Louisiana, as the party’s fourth speaker designate since Kevin McCarthy was deposed earlier this month following a rebellion by a group of right-wing members in the House.

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Johnson said the intention was to bring his nomination to the floor for a formal vote on Wednesday. But it remains to be seen whether he can secure the 217 votes needed in the chamber to become speaker and take his place in the line of succession to the White House after the president and vice-president.

His selection as the latest Republican nominee for the role came after another day of chaos in the House, where party infighting and feuding was on display once again.

Eight Republican members of the House had started off the day in the running for the role. But they were whittled down in a series of votes until Emmer, a congressman from Minnesota, emerged as the winner at around lunchtime.

But there were already concerns about his ability to get the party to rally around him to win a formal vote even before Trump’s invention.

Ther former president had on Monday signalled that he would stay above the fray on this occasion. Last week, he publicly backed Jim Jordan, from the right-wing of the party, for the speakership. However, Jordan’s campaign for the job collapsed after more centrist Republicans refused to back him.

However, early on Tuesday afternoon in Washington, Trump weighed in on social media. Speaking essentially to his followers in the House, he said voting for Emmer would be “a tragic mistake”.

Emmer withdrew after he realised that while he was the party’s official nominee, not enough members on his own side would support him and get his nomination over the line in the full vote on the House floor. Opposition Democrats were all expected to back their own party leader in the House.

The Republican’s tiny majority in the House means that any candidate can only afford to lose four votes from among his own party.

Politico reported that Trump had called members of the House on Tuesday to express his opposition to Emmer becoming speaker. It said that Trump contacted someone close to him on Tuesday afternoon with the message: “He’s done. It’s over. I killed him.”

The report linked Trump’s anger at Emmer to his stumbling answer to a reporter’s question on Monday as to whether he would back the former president’s attempt to return to the White House. Emmer said he was “gonna concentrate” on the contest for speaker.

Trump’s intervention undoubtedly played a role in undermining Emmer’s bid. But a number of Republicans on the right believed that he was just not sufficiently conservative for their liking given his voting record in the House in the past, including to certify Joe Biden’s victory in the 2020 presidential election.

Right-wing Georgia congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene denounced Emmer on social media. She said he had previously voted for a “Democrat gay marriage bill, voted with Democrats to overturn president Trump’s transgender military ban, voted for every penny of Ukraine funding”.

She maintained that Emmer had at one point backed political reforms supported by financier George Soros that would have seen the US presidency determined by the popular vote rather than through an electoral college.

Emmer was the third candidate put forward by the Republican Party who did not generate sufficient support within his own ranks to get over the threshold of 217 votes needed to win the speakership on the floor of the House.

It also meant that for a third week the House of Representatives remained in paralysis, unable to pass legislation in the absence of a speaker.

At the same time a looming threat of a US government shutdown draws nearer unless a budget for next year can be passed in the next three weeks.