Jordan hits campaign trail for House GOP as he looks to shed firebrand reputation

(CNN) — A lot has changed for Jim Jordan since he lost his speakership bid last October.

In the year since, Jordan has been traveling the country and trying to make inroads with colleagues who once told him they couldn’t back him for House Republicans’ top job. And if House Republicans lose their majority next week, all eyes will be on whether Jordan is prepared to challenge a sitting member of leadership to lead Republicans in the next Congress.

Recently, the House Judiciary chairman has hit six states in seven days as he works to soften his hardline image and curry favor with more traditionalists within the party after 17 years in the House, according to interviews with roughly two dozen Republican lawmakers and aides.

Jordan told CNN he is refusing to discuss his political future if Republicans lose the House, saying he remains focused on the extremely close battle to keep their majority. Even so, Jordan’s fans and detractors alike expect the conservative heavyweight to mount a bid for House minority leader if Republicans lose control of the chamber – setting up a high-profile fight as at least one other prominent Republican, Steve Scalise, is widely expected to vie for the leadership job. The GOP’s current leader, Mike Johnson, could also try to keep the top slot.

Perhaps the most obvious shift for Jordan is fundraising. The Ohio Republican spent years donating mostly small sums to party groups and, in at least one instance, in early 2023 before he ran for speaker, asking a fellow member to contribute a cut of a fundraiser he hosted for them, according to two people familiar with the efforts.

Now, Jordan is showing up to help with no strings attached. In the run-up to the November elections, he has helped numerous GOP incumbents who face primary threats from the right and he’s cutting checks for dozens of members in tough districts, including members who opposed him for speaker last year, such as Rep. Don Bacon of Nebraska and John James of Michigan.

In an interview with CNN, Jordan credited his failed speaker bid with helping him to appreciate the dynamics that his fellow Republicans face in competitive swing districts.

“I got to know so many of my colleagues in the course of that campaign, and it was a good thing even though I didn’t win,” Jordan told CNN, speaking just before a political event for vulnerable GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans of Virginia — another one of the roughly 20 Republicans who opposed Jordan during the speaker’s race. He recalled promising his fellow members at the time that he “would do everything I could to help us keep the majority and expand the majority.”

If Republicans keep the House, Jordan said his only leadership aspirations are to keep his gavel on the House Judiciary Committee. But pushed repeatedly about whether he’d rule out challenging a sitting GOP leader if Republicans lose their majority, Jordan would only say that House Republicans won’t lose.

“We are going to win. You can feel it.”

Republicans across the conference are closely watching Jordan’s moves and said his trek to Kiggans’ Virginia Beach swing seat is further proof that he’s learned key lessons from last year’s ugly leadership battle. They say the one-time Freedom Caucus leader’s rebranding effort has won over some of his critics. Other Republicans told CNN they are far more open to him leading the party as House minority leader — a role that emphasizes attack-dog messaging over governing — rather than speaker.

“Jim is working pretty hard to mend fences,” said one GOP lawmaker who voted for Jordan for speaker last year and spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the early leadership jockeying. The Republican member said Jordan has “stepped up involvement in the last six months,” including sending out supportive mailers to help this member, and other conservative Republicans, avoid a far-right challenger in a primary this cycle.

Jordan’s team-player approach is a far cry from the last time he lost a leadership race and after his earlier failed bid against Kevin McCarthy for minority leader six years ago.

And if the House does flip, several Republicans said they believed Jordan would have a real chance of winning the post of minority leader. Unlike in Jordan’s ill-fated bid for speaker last year, he would only need a simple majority of Republicans to elect him minority leader. Other potential GOP candidates aren’t yet clear if Republicans lose the chamber, but most Republican lawmakers believe Scalise, the current House majority leader, will almost certainly run for the No. 1 spot. Johnson is the wildcard: It’s not clear whether he would attempt to remain atop the party.

Bad blood from the speaker’s race

Jordan would still need to overcome a feeling of resentment among some members from last year’s brutal race. Multiple members who voted against Jordan said they still remember how their offices were inundated with angry calls from his supporters and some of the nasty and personal threats they received.

Those outside threats were a key reason Jordan couldn’t win the gavel during last October’s leadership fight. In one meeting among Jordan and his detractors, he asked members point-blank how he could earn their support. One by one, those members — which included GOP Reps. Mario Diaz-Balart, Carlos Gimenez, Steve Womack and others — made clear they would not support Jordan under any circumstance, voicing frustrations about what they saw as a pressure campaign orchestrated by Jordan allies to convince them to vote for Jordan on the floor.

While Jordan and his team maintained they never encouraged those kinds of threats, members who were the subject of those calls have not entirely let it go.

“I think he did himself a great deal of damage in that there is a persona, the outside appearance, of Jim Jordan, and then there is the other side. He showed us the other side, and I don’t like it,” one GOP member told CNN. “Maybe this quest got the better of him in that occasion. I’m willing to look at that. But you know, the best indicator of future behavior is what you’ve done in the past.”

Other long-serving Republicans said they still feel stung by the weeks-long saga, where they argue Jordan dragged out the drama by forcing the House GOP to go to the floor for multiple rounds of ballots that he lost. That’s particularly true among senior Republicans known as the “old bulls,” who still question whether Jordan has truly evolved from the burn-down-the-house Freedom Caucus leader who battled with former Speaker John Boehner nearly a decade ago.

“Obviously the Freedom Caucus is always going to be a part of who Jim Jordan is,” said Rep. Kelly Armstrong, who has worked closely with Jordan for years but was elected to the House after the bruising Tea Party fights in the Obama era. “The people I know who are skeptical, I think a lot of it still comes from before I got to Congress. And you know what, Jim probably earned some of that,” Armstrong said with a chuckle.

“He hasn’t mellowed. I don’t think anybody would accuse him of being a cupcake,” Armstrong added. But he said Jordan’s bulldog-style of messaging — which resonates strongly with the GOP base — would be an enormous asset to any party in the minority, particularly if they’ll be working with a President Donald Trump.

“If Trump wins the White House and we somehow lose the House, who’s the No. 1 guy?” Armstrong said. “I don’t know anybody better.”

Jordan’s evolution as a party fundraiser

Republicans say there’s one other memorable exchange during last year’s speaker race that has remained on their minds this year: How far Jordan is willing to go to help the team financially.

During last year’s GOP candidate forum for speaker, Jordan was asked a question from Rep. Ann Wagner of Missouri about his willingness to lend his own fundraising skills to support vulnerable Republicans. His answer, according to multiple people in the room: It wasn’t his job to raise money for members in tough seats.

Some Republicans recalled an instance when members asked Jordan — with his powerful conservative credentials — to help them fundraise, they were told a portion raised would be expected to contribute to Jordan’s own fundraising groups. Jordan’s team said his fundraising groups were set up to largely benefit the House GOP campaign group, the National Republican Congressional Committee.

While it’s not entirely unusual for GOP surrogates to ask other campaigns to offset travel costs and provide a cut of the fundraising if an event is highly successful, some Republicans privately scoffed at a GOP chairman using that practice.

But since then, Jordan’s mindset on fundraising has shifted dramatically. Campaign spending records show his campaign donated to roughly 50 incumbents in the last quarter, including a half dozen Republicans who opposed him on the floor last year. And not all of that cash went to incumbents in tough races: He gave $2,000 each to safe-seat Republicans, Rep. Victoria Spartz and Doug LaMalfa, who both opposed Jordan last year.

He’s also contributing widely to GOP candidates looking to flip critical blue seats in places like Maryland, Michigan, Alaska and Virginia next month. And he’s not just building ties to incoming Republicans in swing seats: Jordan phones any Republican who wins a primary to congratulate them, according to two people familiar with the conversations.

While some Republicans pointed to Jordan’s substantial campaign chest — a total of $7.3 million on hand, according to the latest financial disclosure in mid-October — others have lauded his multi-million-dollar checks this cycle. That includes $1.5 million in direct cash transfers to the NRCC this cycle. Jordan’s team says the congressman has raised an additional $1 million for the NRCC through events and other means like direct mail.

It’s a significant haul this cycle. Over his career, Jordan has given or raised $4.2 million for the NRCC and Jordan’s team says the congressman has given $2.2 million directly to candidates during his time in Congress.

One Republican who opposed Jordan for speaker last year credited the Ohio Republican’s willingness to contribute to his one-time detractors.

“When he was asked, ‘Do you want to support these guys financially,?’ He could have easily said ‘f off’ but he didn’t,” that Republican said.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2024 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.