Tom Emmer drops out of House speaker race newsbhunt

Republican Rep. Roger Williams, who is running for speaker, outlined his pitch to the conference ahead of Tuesday night’s secret-ballot vote and said that he’s confident somebody in the House GOP can reach the requisite votes on the House floor to become speaker. 

“My whole pitch was a business pitch. I’m a business guy. Still own a business,” the chair of the House Small Business Committee told CNN. 

When asked by CNN if he thinks the nominee should have 217 votes in conference before going to the floor, Williams said if someone gets close, they should head to a floor vote. 

“It’s nice if you can have it, but you get close I think you probably need to go see what’ll happen. We’ve had a lot of things happen the last four days. And 217 is hard to get to. But somebody, we’ve got somebody in that room I firmly believe can get to 217,” the Texas Republican said.

Asked if he can reach that number, Williams said: “Well that’s why I’m running. I think I can. But we’ll see.”