Photo: Win McNamee / Getty Images News / Getty Images
UPDATE: Rep. Tom Emmer dropped out of the race for Speaker hours after he won the GOP nomination.
The Republicans have chosen House Majority Whip Tom Emmer as their nominee for Speaker. The decision was made following a series of secret ballot votes during a closed-door meeting.
He won the nomination by defeating eight others after the fifth vote.
Emmer is the third person to try to become Speaker after a small number of hardline conservatives led by Rep. Matt Gaetz ousted Kevin McCarthy.
The House has been without a Speaker for almost three weeks.
Now, Emmer will face a vote in the full House of Representatives, where he will need to secure 217 votes to win the position.
However, it is unclear if he has enough support, as there still are multiple holdouts, Rep. Dan Meuser of Pennsylvania told CNN.
"I'm concerned. But I think I hope that we have been through this before, so we need to finally come to a consensus," Meuser said.
Rep. Brandon Williams of New York said that 26 Republicans didn't vote for Emmer on the final ballot.
“There were 26 that either voted present or voted for another candidate. Of those I believe there were five that voted present and the bulk of them were for Jim Jordan. I think there was five for Mike Johnson and one for Byron Donalds," Williams said.
The Republicans are continuing to meet behind closed doors, and time has not been set for when the House will convene to vote on a new Speaker.