Emmer out: Republicans’ third speaker nominee withdraws hours after winning contentious vote

Just hours after House Republicans — with much dissent — nominated Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., to replace former Speaker Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif, Emmer bowed out of the speakership race on Tuesday. 

House Republicans are now in talks about suspending conference rules to open the speaker nominations, which would do away with the candidate forum, according to Punchbowl News‘ Jake Sherman and John Bresnahan. If successful, the move would make Reps. Kevin Hern, R-Okla. and Mike Johnson, R-La., candidates.  

Just before reports of Emmer’s dropping out, several Republican members of Congress told CNN correspondents Melanie Zanona and Manu Raju that his candidacy was “on the verge of collapse.” The development marked an acceleration in the House GOP’s turbulent in-fighting, which sparked McCarthy’s historic ouster earlier this month and has since delayed the elevation of a new House speaker.

Freshman Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., a MAGA Republican, publicly declared she did not vote for and would not be voting for Emmer on X, formerly Twitter, Tuesday afternoon following the official, closed-door role-call vote nominating him that saw 26 Republicans state their intentions to vote for someone else. Many of the Republicans’ reservations about the Minnesota congressman stem from his record on fiscal and social issues, particularly his support of gay marriage, which Georgia Rep. Rick Allen told Punchbowl News was a disqualifier for him. Former President Donald Trump also expressed his disapproval of Emmer’s bid for the speakership, deriding the Minnesota Republican on Truth Social as a “RINO,” or Republican in name only hours after he secured the GOP nomination. 

“I have many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House, and some are truly great Warriors. RINO Tom Emmer, who I do not know well, is not one of them. He never respected the Power of a Trump Endorsement, or the breadth and scope of MAGA—MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! He fought me all the way, and actually spent more time defending Ilhan Omar, than he did me—He is totally out-of-touch with Republican Voters,” Trump began before further questioning Emmer’s loyalty to him. “Voting for a Globalist RINO like Tom Emmer would be a tragic mistake!” he added.

Trump’s attack came as Emmer worked to garner more votes to secure the speaker’s gavel in a full floor vote. He had reportedly vowed to remain in the voting chambers until he garnered a full 217 but was seen leaving the voting chamber without so much as a word in the late afternoon Tuesday before Punchbowl News’ report. “So at this point, House Republicans are literally ungovernable,” Politico correspondent Rachel Bade tweeted of the GOP dissent against Emmer. “Enough of them continue to prioritize revenge against their political enemies & enhancing their own power over the good of their own party.”

The House speakership has been vacant for the last three weeks, a time period which has seen the quick rises and quicker downfalls of two other hopefuls: Reps. Steve Scalise, R-La., and Jim Jordan, R-Ohio. Scalise dropped out of the race just a day after receiving the nomination after a group of GOP holdouts’ refused to back him, while 122 Republicans voted to boot Jordan from the race in a secret ballot last week after he failed three attempts to be elected speaker.