When House Speaker Mike Johnson decided in September to send lawmakers home early to their districts ahead of the midterm elections, House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan quietly made clear that he would have handled the situation differently, according to a source close to Jordan.

In a private conversation with one Republican lawmaker, Jordan said he would have kept lawmakers in Washington longer to hold more votes that would be politically challenging for Democrats. He also expressed interest in holding more votes on President Donald Trump’s elections overhaul bill that has been blocked in the Republican-led Senate, arguing that would help House Republicans on the campaign trail even if the bill won’t be signed into law. “Jim has a different vision on how he would have gone about this,” the source added.

The episode is part of a delicate dance Jordan and his allies are engaged in behind the scenes.

Publicly, Jordan says he is solely focused on helping Republicans keep the majority and supporting Johnson as speaker. But many House Republicans believe that Jordan is laying the groundwork to run for the top leadership spot if they lose the chamber, according to half a dozen lawmakers and aides. “He clearly wants to be minority leader,” a senior GOP aide told CNN.

“He is fully running. He is calling candidates.”As Republicans grapple with the very real possibility they may lose the House, they are jockeying behind the scenes over who could lead their party in the minority. Johnson has also said publicly he intends to stay on as GOP leader whether Republicans win or lose the House, setting the stage for a potential clash within the party as other lawmakers eye the top spot.

Asked for comment for this story, a Jordan spokesperson pointed to a previous statement in which Jordan said he was focused on winning in the midterms.

A Johnson spokesperson pointed to a previous statement where Johnson said he believes Republicans will keep the majority and that he will remain their leader. Many House Republicans say the job is Johnson’s regardless of what happens in November, particularly because the speaker has Trump’s backing.

Even though Jordan and Trump have a long history of working and socializing together, the president and Johnson have a strong and established relationship. But Jordan allies have made the case to some in Trump’s orbit that Jordan is in a unique position to defend Trump against Democratic investigations if Republicans are in the minority.

They point to his experience leading the Judiciary committee and defending the president during both impeachments, two of the sources said. Johnson recently set off speculation about his political future after the midterms when he said in an interview with Fox News, “Heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don’t know what my next chapter of life is.”

“If God moves on our hearts and says we should, you know, go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I’ll do that with equal fervor.”But in that same interview Johnson also projected confidence he will remain speaker. “I’m going to be the speaker in the next Congress,” Johnson said, when asked if he would run.

“I’m not going to talk about the scenario where we don’t win the House, because I am laser-focused on winning the House.”Attempting to clarify his comments, Johnson said later in an interview with CBS News that his quip about starting a lawn business was meant to illustrate that his top objective, always, is to “be of my highest and best use to God and to my country.”

But Johnson said if “in the unlikely scenario” Republicans lose the House majority, “I would expect my colleagues would call upon me to continue to lead the conference in divided government. My intention is to stay and serve and that’s what I’ve been doing, as best I can.”

And Johnson allies point out that if he had kept the House in longer before the November midterms, Republicans would have had to take divisive votes on the impeachment of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and the Jeffrey Epstein case files. Under Johnson, the House has voted on Trump’s elections overhaul legislation, the SAVE Act, multiple times. Jordan has yet to launch an outright campaign and his allies insist he is a team player who is not trying to undercut Johnson.

But the Ohio Republican’s aggressive travel schedule ahead of the midterms to campaign for candidates running in tight races across the country, along with ramped up donations to vulnerable Republicans, has many in his party taking notice. In this election cycle through September, Jordan donated $1.97 million directly to candidates and $2.65 million to the party’s House campaign arm, according to a source familiar with the matter. Jordan has traveled to 33 states this cycle so far and this week launched a 19-day campaign swing, visiting states from Washington to Florida.

Jordan ran for speaker in 2023 after McCarthy’s historic ouster, but faced opposition from moderate Republicans who didn’t know him well and felt he was too much of a conservative firebrand.

Since then, Jordan has worked to mend relationships, including with those who said Jordan’s allies threatened them physically or verbally, by campaigning in their districts and donating to their campaigns. “I think he is trying to position himself for something,” GOP Rep. Carlos Gimenez, who voted against Jordan for speaker back in 2023 and backs Johnson now, told CNN.

“It’s subtle. And maybe not so subtle.”Former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy is quietly making the case to some Republicans that Jordan would be a good fit to lead Republicans if they lose the majority, according to two sources familiar with the conversations. But others say Jordan is not proactively pursing any type of personal agenda.

And Jordan is keeping his cards close to the vest. He even walks away from colleagues who ask him about his future, according to some sources who have tried to ask. “Having gotten to know Jim, and seeing him travel the country to help defend our majority’s swing district members, I am confident he’d rather be a rank-and-file member of the majority than have a position in minority leadership,” one GOP lawmaker told CNN.

When members of the far-right House Freedom Caucus were summoned to the White House by Trump to discuss an expiring spy powers program in April, many looked to Jordan to represent their opposition.

Jordan, the only founding member of the group still in Congress, had built his reputation on standing up to leadership, and he had voted against reauthorization of the program in 2024.

But now as a chairman, he deferred to Johnson and the White House, according to a GOP lawmaker in the room. “It’s kind of a different Jim Jordan. The savagery you saw before, I haven’t seen that as much here as of late,” the GOP lawmaker told CNN.

Since his failed leadership bid in 2023, Jordan has avoided the floor antics and consistent fights with leadership that Freedom Caucus members are regularly engaged in.

Instead of leaning into the Republican-led investigation into Jeffrey Epstein, Jordan has barely talked about it and let House Oversight Chair James Comer be the GOP face of the work. When the panel held the high-profile depositions of Bill and Hillary Clinton in February, Jordan was instead campaigning with Republicans in the swing state of Pennsylvania. That team player and deferential mentality has become a key part of Jordan’s appeal to some reading the tea leaves about his future.

He has bought a lot of goodwill, particularly from moderates who were encouraged to see that he did not walk away after they rejected him three years ago. Instead, he took them to dinners, cut them campaign checks, and drove turnout at rallies in their districts to try to bring out base voters. “He’s taken time to build these relationships and get to know these people,” a senior GOP operative told CNN.

“Helping the team out also has the added benefit of, you know, positioning.”The dynamics in the House Republican conference are also different from the last time Jordan mounted a bid. A number of lawmakers who voted against him are no longer serving in Congress. His trying to serve as minority leader with Trump as president, too, is a very different scenario than in 2023, when former Democratic President Joe Biden was in the White House and the speaker had to operate in a split government. If Democrats do reclaim the majority, Jordan’s background as a Trump-aligned attack dog and aggressive questioner of witnesses could make him a critical GOP figure, as Democrats target Trump and his administration with a deluge of investigations.

Republican leadership heavily relied on Jordan to shape the party’s messaging strategy during the two impeachments of Trump, even temporarily assigning him to the House Intelligence Committee in 2019 so he could be the public face defending the president. “If you could incubate a minority leader with Trump as president and Jamie Raskin as Judiciary Chair, I don’t know how the person that comes out isn’t Jim Jordan,” a Republican close to leadership told CNN.

When Jordan was campaigning with GOP Rep. Jen Kiggans in her battleground district in Virginia in September, he provided a window into how he would play defense for Trump against Democrats. (Kiggans voted against Jordan for speaker back in 2023 and said at the time that “threats and intimidation tactics” would not work on her). “It’s unbelievable what he’s been through,” Jordan said about Trump on September 26, detailing the two impeachments and various criminal investigations against him. Recounting his phone call with Trump the day the FBI searched his home in Mar-a-Lago, Jordan told voters, “When he answers, he doesn’t even say hello. He just goes, ‘Jim this is the best thing that’s ever happened to our party.’ He goes, ‘my numbers are going to go up.’”

The packed room laughed.

But not everyone is buying Jordan’s efforts to present himself as less of a firebrand. “I don’t think that has translated to any actual policy compromises,” one GOP source told CNN.

“I think Jordan has moderated publicly and at the member level, but the staff is the same. The policy is the same.”

Most Republicans argue that Johnson is their leader. But even some of Johnson’s supporters say Jordan brings some important qualities to the table. “Jim Jordan brings a lot of experience, a lot of wisdom, if you will, to Congress and to the conservative side of the aisle that we need people like Jim Jordan to be in continuing leadership roles at whatever level that might be decided by the conference after the election,” GOP Rep. Jack Bergman told CNN.

“I tell you what, I don’t rule out anything because the point is, if you’re asking me who I’m supporting right now, I’m supporting Mike Johnson.”Back in February, Jordan was campaigning with GOP Rep. Ryan Mackenzie in Pennsylvania instead of questioning Clinton in Chappaqua, New York, as part of the Epstein investigation. Mackenzie, a freshman in Congress who was not yet elected when Jordan launched his speakership bid back in 2023, said he has gotten to know a different side of the Ohio Republican. The two men have bonded over family (Mackenzie’s young children and Jordan’s grandchildren are around the same age). And Jordan helped Mackenzie usher legislation through the House Judiciary Committee to expand the E-Verify program, a federal system used by employers to confirm a new hire is legally authorized to work in the US.

“I think he is very well respected in our conference. And one of the things that I’ve seen and heard not just with him but other members that go through a leadership race and don’t get the outcome they are looking for, those that continue to stay in the fight and be great members of the conference actually engender and earn even more respect and support. And I think that’s what he’s done in this case,” Mackenzie told CNN in March, reflecting on his campaign visit with Jordan.

Yet, planning for a reality where Republicans won’t be in the minority is a bridge most are still unwilling to cross.

“We won’t be,” GOP Rep. August Pfluger told CNN when asked who he would support if Republicans are in the minority.