President Donald Trump endorsed Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio on Friday to lead House Republicans in the next Congress. The move put the White House on one side of a leadership contest against Majority Leader Steve Scalise. The vote follows the party's loss of the chamber in Tuesday's midterm elections.

The race opened after Speaker Mike Johnson told staff on a call on Wednesday that he would not seek the minority leader post, according to reports by CBS News and Axios. Scalise and Jordan quickly emerged as the leading candidates. House Republicans are scheduled to hold leadership elections behind closed doors on Tuesday 10 November.

The contest revives a rivalry from October 2023, when Scalise briefly won the Republican nomination for Speaker before withdrawing amid conservative resistance. Jordan, a founding chairman of the House Freedom Caucus and chairman of the Judiciary Committee, was then backed by Mr Trump. Allies of Jordan argued that a combative figure was better suited to opposing a Democratic majority expected to pursue aggressive investigations of the administration.

Scalise's supporters said the Louisiana Republican retained deep loyalty among rank-and-file members and a stronger record as a vote-counter and fundraiser. Members aligned with him privately questioned whether a presidential endorsement would sway a secret ballot after a night that Senator John Curtis of Utah, in a Substack post on Tuesday, called a Republican shellacking. Curtis wrote that the party needed to look in the mirror.

The endorsement marked a rare intervention by Mr Trump in the aftermath of the midterms. He had spent his first extended public remarks since the election discussing the White House ballroom project, and he warned Democrats that pursuing impeachment would destroy their party. Whoever wins on Tuesday will lead the Republican response to any impeachment effort in the new Congress.