Pa. congressman Dan Meuser ends his brief run for House speaker

The chaotic race to find a speaker of the House enters its next chapter this week, with a slate of lawmakers hoping to reset the delayed process and win over enough support to end 20 days of government paralysis.

One of those nine candidates was U.S. Rep. Dan Meuser, who has represented parts of Northeast and Central Pennsylvania since 2019 — who briefly entered the race before dropping out Monday night.

In a statement Monday evening, Meuser announced he was withdrawing his candidacy.

“We must this week come together as Republicans and elect a new speaker and get back to work,” he said. “Growing our Republican majority in the House, winning the Senate, and electing President Trump in 2024 is the best way to move our country forward.”

His short-lived bid came as somewhat of a surprise given that he’s a more junior member of the body. Lesser-known and less-experienced members aren’t typically elevated to leadership, much less speaker, the head of the chamber and the person who is second in line for the presidency.

But nothing about the last two weeks has been typical.

After a historic ouster of Speaker Kevin McCarthy, House Republicans considered several people for the job, including Rep. Steve Scalise (R., La.), who then took himself out of contention. The chamber voted over three rounds on whether to elect Rep. Jim Jordan (R., Ohio). On Friday when it was clear Jordan was bleeding support, the plan shifted to starting fresh and hearing from interested members at a candidate convention Monday evening, with hopes of whittling the list down quickly and turning to voting this week. Meuser was the only candidate to drop out after that convention Monday; eight others were still reported to be running.

After Scalise and Jordan both took themselves out of contention, some Republicans suggested that a less-established lawmaker might form the consensus the body has been lacking. Meuser echoed that sentiment in a Sunday letter announcing his plans to seek the seat.

“Our current challenge as a Conference is not policy or fundraising but unity,” Meuser said. He quoted Rudyard Kipling and said members of Congress should heed the business principle of “checking one’s ego at the door.”

The other candidates who met a Sunday deadline to announce a run — and were still in the race Monday night — are Reps. Jack Bergman (R., Minn.); Byron Donalds (R., Fla.); Tom Emmer (R., Ind.); Kevin Hern (R., Okla.); Mike Johnson (R., La.); Gary Palmer (R., Ala.); Austin Scott (R., Ga.), and Pete Sessions (R., Texas).

Meuser, who represents a reliably Republican district, is a strong backer of former President Donald Trump and has already endorsed him in the 2024 presidential election. He, along with all of the speaker candidates except for Emmer and Scott, voted to decertify the 2020 presidential election.

When he announced the end of his run for speaker Monday, Meuser noted: “I’ve spoken to President Trump, and he supports my decision.”

Meuser is also a member of the bipartisan House of Representatives’ Problem Solvers Caucus and has bucked the most right-leaning wing of his party in recent votes, including voting to suspend the debt ceiling and in favor of a stopgap plan to fund the government.

And Meuser’s decision to jump into the race thrust him into the spotlight. He’s appeared on CNN, Newsmax, and Fox News in the last few days.

“Win or not, it’s an opportunity to be in the focus of the national stage which never hurts,” Republican political strategist Charlie Gerow said.

Meuser has a background in business — he is the former president of a company that manufactured motorized wheelchairs. He was state secretary of revenue under former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and won his first term in Congress in 2018. He easily won the seat (formerly held by U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta) again in 2020 and 2022 after redistricting.