“Offense, Not Defense”: Jordan Crushes Scalise To Lead Shrunken GOP Into Subpoena War

House Republicans picked Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan on Tuesday to lead them into the minority, 106-73 over Majority Leader Steve Scalise in a secret ballot a week after a midterm wipeout handed Democrats their biggest House majority in decades, CBS reported. The Ohio Republican sold himself to colleagues as the man to take the incoming majority’s investigations head on.

Congratulations Jim Jordan, House Minority Leader-elect. pic.twitter.com/UyM5LOro0a

— House Republicans (@HouseGOP) November 10, 2026

“I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook,” Jordan wrote in a Nov. 4 letter to members, the day after the election. He told them what to expect: “Each Democrat-led committee will turn their full attention to investigating every facet of the Administration and private entities across the country.”

His pitch was that playing defense had already failed. 

“In these next two years, our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is – offense, not defense, wins elections,” he wrote. “For too long, we have operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us. That will not cut it against an emboldened and energetic Democrat majority.” 

After the vote he took no questions, saying only, “Over the next two years, House Republicans will fight for American families,” according to CBS’s live coverage.

The conference he inherits is a shadow of the one that held the gavel. Democrats had won 253 seats to Republicans’ 167 with 15 races still uncalled, a net gain of 41, by NBC’s count on Tuesday, and NBC’s model projects a 259-176 House. As we noted the morning after, Democrats also flipped the Senate.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who said on Nov. 4 that he would not seek the top Republican post in the next Congress, called Jordan “a mentor” on Tuesday and would not say how he voted, calling both candidates “my brothers.” Johnson said he would “take the oath in January” but would not commit to serving a full term, and offered one consolation: “It is easier to keep a group together when you’re in the minority.”

Scalise, in leadership since 2014, ran on his fundraising, telling colleagues he raised $67.9 million for the midterms, about a third of it for House campaigns and the National Republican Congressional Committee, ABC7 reported. “Overcoming adversity is nothing new to me,” he wrote. It wasn’t enough for the man who ran the floor for the majority that just lost it, and President Trump stayed out of the race. Tom Emmer kept his job as whip, beating Texas Rep. August Pfluger, per NBC’s live blog.

The win closes a loop from 2023, when both men ran for speaker after Kevin McCarthy’s ouster and neither could unite the party. Jordan lost 25 Republicans on his third floor ballot, as PBS reported at the time, and the little-known Johnson ended up with the gavel. Jordan co-founded the House Freedom Caucus and was its first chairman, and he has run Judiciary since 2023.

Jordan leaves Judiciary with open fights: in July he referred former special counsel Jack Smith to the Justice Department for possible prosecution over his deposition testimony, a move ranking Democrat Jamie Raskin called “baseless and vindictive.” Raskin is now in line to take Jordan’s gavel, and he has already said law firms that cut deals with the administration, Paul, Weiss among them, should expect subpoenas, HuffPost reported.

Robert Garcia, the incoming Oversight chairman, used his election-night statement to call the president’s relatives “The Trump Crime Family” and tell Republicans to “lawyer up.” Garcia has since promised public Epstein hearings and named Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as a possible impeachment target, per NBC. As we reported, Attorney General Todd Blanche has refused to rule out prosecuting Democrats over those threats; Garcia answered, “We’re not going to be intimidated.”

The first test comes before Jordan even takes the new job with the House set to vote on a Republican motion to table Rep. Thomas Massie’s eight articles of impeachment against Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the Iran war and other operations, with Johnson saying, “We have the votes.” Hakeem Jeffries, who flipped to a “hard yes” on impeaching Hegseth, is expected to take the speaker’s gavel in January, and Jordan will be the Republican answering him.