Representative Dan Crenshaw, a Republican who supported Jordan, compared the anti-Jordan faction to the “hard-liners” who stymied McCarthy in January. “The hard-liners, for the most part, aren’t any more conservative than the so-called ‘moderates.’ They’re just angrier, and more willing to use tactics that are based in emotion,” Crenshaw said. People usually use the word “moderate,” he continued, to describe lawmakers who are more “willing to govern.”
Still, it might not be accurate to characterize Jordan opponents uniformly as pure institutionalists. Indeed, one of the most vocal of the anti-Jordan crew, Representative Ken Buck, said that he should not be considered an “institutionalist”; he was one of the eight who voted to oust McCarthy in September. “I think there is a broad spectrum of support for Jim, and I think there’s a broad spectrum of opposition. I don’t think you can cubbyhole either side,” Buck said, adding that he considers himself a “Reagan Republican.”
The other holdouts included some senior appropriators but also several Republicans from New York in swing districts, loyalists to McCarthy, and lawmakers who opposed Jordan’s support for former President Donald Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election. Womack noted that the groundswell against Jordan was “organic,” with support from different members across the ideological spectrum and the country.