The only two viable potential replacements for John Boehner as speaker of the House say they back the Ohio Republican and will oppose any effort to remove him from power. But other high-ranking Republicans are testing the waters should the embattled speaker be forced out.

In a pair of statements to POLITICO, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and Ways and Means Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) forcefully backed Boehner and called for an end to the intraparty warfare crippling the House Republican Conference as it faces a possible government shutdown on Oct. 1.


“I support John Boehner as speaker,” McCarthy told POLITICO in a statement.

“We should be spending all of our time and energy confronting this administration’s disastrous policies,” he added. “The intrigue and fighting amongst ourselves only makes it harder to get that done. It ought to stop immediately.”

Ryan was similarly dismissive of the threat by conservative hard-liners to oust Boehner. “The best person to lead the conference right now is John Boehner, and any attempt to remove him would be counterproductive,” Ryan said.

The support from McCarthy and Ryan represents the most full-throated endorsement of Boehner since a small pocket of conservatives said they were looking to knock him out of the speaker’s chair in July.

Still, Boehner’s tenuous hold on power, exacerbated by conservative demands to cut off federal funding to Planned Parenthood, has set off some jockeying for position in the upper ranks of the House GOP hierarchy should he fall.

Several GOP lawmakers have approached McCarthy, majority leader since mid-2014, to discuss Boehner’s fate. The California Republican isn’t entertaining that talk or planning a run, but a number of other Republicans in leadership have started to formally test their own political viability inside the GOP conference in the event that Boehner is forced to give up his post.

A potentially hot race is already shaping up for majority leader post-Boehner. House Republican Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.) has been actively positioning herself for a run for the No. 2 spot. The highest-ranking woman in the House GOP, she has been busy consulting fellow lawmakers on a policy platform for the conference.

But a run by McMorris Rodgers — currently the No. 4 House Republican — would put her in direct competition with House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who is now No. 3 in the GOP leadership. Scalise has been asking lawmakers to commit to him in a race for majority leader if one develops. Aides to Scalise and McMorris Rodgers said the lawmakers back Boehner’s continued tenure as speaker.

“It’s the whip’s job to be in constant contact with other members and keep his finger on the pulse of the conference,” said Chris Bond, a spokesman for Scalise. “Right now, House Republicans are working to stop a bad nuclear deal with Iran and end Planned Parenthood’s disturbing practice of selling fetal body parts. We’re actively focused on the job at hand, and anything else is just a distraction.”

But the palace intrigue surrounding Boehner is indisputable. And it’s unusual for a leadership election to burst into full view less than a year after Boehner won his third term as speaker, and just 14 months after the last contested House leadership election.

However, Boehner does face serious internal challenges, as even his closest allies openly admit. A small pocket of roughly two dozen conservatives — led by members of the House Freedom Caucus — have threatened to try and remove the speaker if they don’t get what they want on a government funding bill by the end of this month.

GOP leadership prefers to defund Planned Parenthood as part of the budget reconciliation process, while the Republican hard-liners want to include a prohibition on funding for the group in a must-pass continuing resolution to keep the government open. These conservatives say the issue of cutting off Planned Parenthood’s money is worth the political backlash from a shutdown.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has already vowed to avoid the second federal shutdown in two years; Boehner will say only that “the goal” is not to do so.

The House GOP leadership is moving extremely slowly on the CR, staging a series of “listening sessions” to determine what rank-and-file members want to do. However, they are quickly running out of time to move something to the floor and then get it through the Senate, boosting the chances of a shutdown.

Boehner remains personally popular inside the GOP conference, and his supporters say he is the only person who could command enough support to be speaker. Yet his fate might rest with Democrats, who have not decided how they would vote if a Republican files a so-called motion to vacate the chair.

Several House Democratic leadership aides say it would be difficult to vote against Boehner, while others said Democrats would vote present. Should they vote present, Boehner would need to earn the simple majority of Republicans voting. If every GOP lawmaker voted, Boehner would win with 124 votes.

Meanwhile, Boehner’s allies vow that there truly is no secret behind the speaker’s thinking. He wants to remain speaker — and thinks he has the votes to do so.

“He pretty much says it like it is,” Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said. “‘I’m going to keep trying to do the very best that I can.’”

“He told us the other day in the conference, ‘You elect us, we try to do as best as we can with what everyone wants and develop a strategy and move forward,’” Nunes added. “That’s what his job is, and he’s going to continue to do that.”