majority. they wrote in a letter to colleagues, such quarrels delay our ability to establish a working majority in the people s house. make no mistake. we will not allow this conference to be dragged down a path to a paralyzed house that weakens our hard-fought majority. no serious challenger to mccarthy has emerged yet. but if not for lack of trying. the anti-mccarthy group has been having informal talks with republicans gaging their interest. that includes steve scalise, the number two republican as well as jim jordan, in line to chair the jewish which committee and tom emmer, the majority bhip next year. all three said they are not interested, they are backing mccarthy, won t challenge him outright. however, it is unclear what would happen on january 3rd if mccarthy doesn t get to the 218 votes or drops out of the race. it s expected any number of republicans would want to throw their hat into the ring. a whole lot of uncertainty right now hanging over the speaker s