House Majority Whip Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota is the new Republican nominee for House speaker.

Mr. Emmer won the nomination following several rounds of secret ballots cast in a closed-door meeting on Tuesday in the Capitol.

He garnered 117 votes out of 219 GOP lawmakers voting. He beat Vice Conference Chair Mike Johnson, of Louisiana, who won 97 votes. Five lawmakers voted present or for an unnamed candidate.

Mr. Emmer is not a shoo-in to win the gavel on the House floor. He’ll need to win roughly 217 GOP votes to become speaker and could face opposition from some hardline conservatives in the conference.

He only can afford to lose about four GOP lawmakers in a floor vote.

The speaker position has been empty since Oct. 3 thanks to intense disagreements within the GOP over the direction of the conference.

Lack of support pushed out Speaker Kevin McCarthy of California and blocked Rep Jim Jordan of Ohio and Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana from winning on the House floor, where Democrats also cast a vote for speaker and plan to back their leader, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Some Democrats say they’ll help Mr. Emmer win the job by sitting out the vote, which would make it easier for Mr. Emmer to win even with some GOP holdouts. But those Democrats want an accompanying spending deal that most Republicans would oppose.

• Susan Ferrechio can be reached at sferrechio@washingtontimes.com.

• Alex Miller can be reached at amiller@washingtontimes.com.

• Kerry Picket can be reached at kpicket@washingtontimes.com.