Jeffries won the most speaker votes — but that doesn't mean he can win the gavel

An ally of Rep. Jim Jordan said "This is much worse than we expected."

Jordan failed to win the speakership on the first vote.

He earned 200 votes while House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries won 212 votes. Twenty Republicans appear to have voted against Jordan.

Rep. Dan Meuser, another GOP ally of Jordan, said the conference needs to get it together and just elect Jordan and stop dragging this out. 

"Wake up and stop this nonsense. There’s real serious work to be done," he said. 

He said he's tired of McCarthy and Scalise allies standing in the way. 

"So what, so that was done, there were 8 that created all kinds of destruction. Why are we going to prolong these setbacks? I had a couple say that to me now, 'we didn’t start this.' I don’t know, I haven’t heard that since the playground."

Asked what comes next, he didn't know how Jordan would proceed and if he'd try for another vote tonight. 

"We’ll see what the math says, we’ll see what progress can be made over the next couple of hours. I just had some brief discussions but pretty direct and relatively strong with a couple of members. And maybe they come around. We’ve got to understand , we’ve got to operate as a team, because if we don’t we will lose everything and continue the disarray and lose appropriations and just continue to muddle through and have things get worse," Meuser said.