Louisiana congressman Steve Scalise has been nominated by the Republican Party in the US House of Representatives to be its nominee for speaker.
At a meeting behind closed doors on Wednesday, he defeated Ohio congressman Jim Jordan by 113 votes to 99 in a secret ballot.
Mr Scalise will have to win a vote on the floor of the House of Representatives to become speaker to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was ousted in an internal Republican Party revolt last week.
Mr Scalise will need to secure 217 votes to win the speakership and can only afford to lose the backing of handful of Republicans, assuming all Democrats will back their own candidate for the role, House minority leader Hakeem Jeffries.
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A key issue will be whether Mr Jordan and his supporters will back Mr Scalise.
It will be up to Mr Scalise to decide when the vote should take place on the floor of the House of Representatives.
Last January, Mr McCarthy was elected speaker after 15 rounds of voting, which exposed the divisions within the Republican Party in the House.
Mr Jordan, who was defeated in the internal Republican Party meeting, had been backed by former president Donald Trump.
In the absence of a speaker, the US House of Representatives has effectively been paralysed and unable to pass legislation – at a time when it may be required to authorise a package of aid for Israel or Ukraine.
There is also a looming deadline next month for the US Congress to pass spending bills to keep the government open next year.
Hard-right members of the Republican Party revolted earlier this month after Mr McCarthy reached a deal with Democrats to pass a temporary bill to keep the US government in operation.
In a government shutdown, millions of federal employees, including military personnel, would not be paid. Some key workers would have to continue in the jobs without pay until the budget was authorised by Congress.
Mr Scalise (58), was Mr McCarthy’s deputy in the Republican Party leadership in the House of Representatives.
A member of Congress since 2008, Mr Scalise was diagnosed with blood cancer during the summer and has been receiving treatment.
In 2007, Mr Scalise was shot and seriously wounded while training for a congressional baseball game.
Earlier on Wednesday, Republicans in the House of Representatives rejected proposals to change the party’s rules governing the election of a nominee for the speakership.
The House Republican Party voted against a move to increase the threshold to elect the party’s nominee for speaker to more than a simple majority.
The proposal would have required the successful candidate to become the Republican nominee to secure the backing of 217 members – the number needed to win the overall vote for speaker on the floor of the House of Representatives.
