Representative Steve Scalise of Louisiana scrounged on Thursday for the support to be elected speaker as Republicans balked at rallying around their party’s chosen candidate, leaving the House leaderless and the G.O.P. in chaos.
A day after being narrowly nominated for speaker during a closed-door secret-ballot contest among House Republicans, Mr. Scalise, their No. 2 leader, remained far from the 217 votes needed to be elected on the House floor. Many supporters of his challenger, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, the hard-right Republican endorsed by former President Donald J. Trump, said they would not switch their allegiance. And there was no clear end in sight to the G.O.P. infighting that has left one chamber of Congress paralyzed at a time of challenges at home and abroad.
“It’s broken; we are a broken conference,” said Representative Troy Nehls, Republican of Texas, lamenting the dysfunction and his party’s inability to coalesce behind a leader. He said he would back Mr. Scalise, but that neither he nor Mr. Jordan had the votes to be elected speaker.
Amid the uncertainty, the House convened momentarily at noon, but Republicans quickly called a recess as they assembled for a closed-door meeting in the basement of the Capitol. It stretched on for hours as Mr. Scalise struggled to win support and lawmakers vented complaints, in what Representative Mike Gallagher of Wisconsin compared to “Festivus,” a parody holiday dedicated to the airing of grievances.
“The momentum is with Jim,” Representative Andy Ogles of Tennessee said as he entered the meeting. “We should stay late. Get up early. We should work this weekend. We should get it done.”
Adding to the drama, Mr. Trump weighed in on Thursday against Mr. Scalise, arguing that he was unfit for the post because he is battling blood cancer.
“Steve is a man that is in serious trouble, from the standpoint of his cancer,” Mr. Trump said on Fox News Radio, adding later: “I just don’t know how you can do the job when you have such a serious problem.”
Some top Republicans also were refraining from publicly rallying around Mr. Scalise, instead allowing the resistance to him in their ranks to fester. Mr. Jordan had yet to make a full-throated endorsement of Mr. Scalise despite indicating his support. And Representative Kevin McCarthy of California, the ousted former speaker who has an icy relationship with Mr. Scalise, said the Louisiana Republican had overestimated his backing and might be unable to recover.
“It’s possible; it’s a big hill, though,” Mr. McCarthy told reporters at the Capitol as he entered a meeting with Mr. Scalise. “He had told a lot of people he was going to be at 150. He wasn’t there.”
It was the latest remarkable turn in a saga that has been marked by whiplash, shifting alliances and petty grudges. The situation has highlighted major changes in the nature of the House Republican conference, whose members once dutifully lined up in support of their chosen leaders but increasingly appear to be pursuing a strategy of every member for themselves.
The uncertainty has hobbled the House amid multiple crises, with U.S. allies at war in Israel and Ukraine and a government shutdown looming next month if Congress cannot reach a spending agreement.
Some Republicans were already discussing the possibility of dumping Mr. Scalise and rallying around an alternative candidate who could unite their ranks. Among the names being mentioned were Representatives Tom Cole of Oklahoma, the Rules Committee chairman, and Patrick T. McHenry of North Carolina, who was named the interim speaker after Mr. McCarthy’s removal.
Foreseeing a drawn-out speaker fight that could last for weeks, some others were discussing how the House might function without an elected speaker. They were discussing how they might give Mr. McHenry, whose role is primarily to hold an election for a new speaker, more power to carry out the chamber’s work until the internal conflict could be resolved and a new speaker elected.
Lawmakers were growing increasingly frustrated with the disarray, lamenting the spectacle they were making of themselves.
“This is a bad episode of ‘Veep’ and it’s turning into ‘House of Cards,” said Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a New York Republican who initially supported Mr. Jordan but said she planned to back Mr. Scalise, emerging from the lengthy meeting.
Representative Ronny Jackson, Republican of Texas, compared his party’s deliberations unfavorably to a gathering to select a new pope, where white smoke is the signal that a consensus has been reached.
“If you see smoke it’s not a speaker; someone just set the place on fire,” he told reporters.
The range of objections to Mr. Scalise ran the gamut, crossing ideological and regional lines and reflecting the many competing factions among House Republicans.
Some detractors were simply loyal to Mr. Jordan or Mr. McCarthy. Some believed Mr. Scalise was not sufficiently on board with Mr. Trump’s agenda or the demands of the Freedom Caucus, though he is deeply conservative. One member countered that Mr. Scalise was too aligned with Mr. Trump and failed to respect the results of the 2020 election. Another, Representative Nancy Mace of South Carolina, criticized Mr. Scalise on national television over a meeting he attended decades ago with white nationalists, for which he has apologized.
Still others, such as Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, cited Mr. Scalise’s cancer diagnosis. And some complained he had not paid them enough attention.
Representative George Santos of New York, who is under federal indictment on fraud allegations, declared himself a “Never Scalise” voter because, he said, the Louisiana congressman had ignored him.
“I’ve reached out numerous times to Congressman Scalise,” Mr. Santos told reporters. “Me reaching out and asking him for guidance and his leadership, and him not reaching back out? That’s a dereliction of his duty as a leader. So I’m not voting for somebody who lacks fundamental leadership skills.”
The fractures underscored the unruly nature of the House Republican conference, where lawmakers appeared increasingly driven by their own priorities, grievances and concerns rather than any sense of collective interest.
“The underlying problem is that we have, increasingly, a culture in this town that thinks if you don’t get everything you want, you get to vote no,” said Representative Dusty Johnson, a North Dakota Republican and close ally of Mr. McCarthy. “That’s no way to run government.”
In private meetings, Mr. Scalise was offering a number of promises to try to win over holdouts, in a scene reminiscent of what Mr. McCarthy went through during his 15-round slog to be elected speaker in January.
Mr. Scalise discussed altering House rules with Representative Chip Roy of Texas, the policy chairman of the Freedom Caucus, who said he was “not happy” with the way the Louisiana Republican’s team shot down his ideas in a conference meeting. Mr. Roy also noted that Mr. Scalise had only a “thin” lead over Mr. Jordan, whom he defeated by only 14 votes.
He gained ground with a few of his critics, but lost some as well. He flipped Representative Anna Paulina Luna of Florida on Wednesday night by promising to continue the impeachment inquiry into President Biden that Mr. McCarthy had ordered and efforts to defund the investigation by Jack Smith, the special counsel, into Mr. Trump.
But Ms. Luna switched back on Thursday after Mr. Trump cited Mr. Scalise’s cancer as a reason he should not be speaker.
“We’ll be going with who Trump endorses,” she said.
Annie Karni, Catie Edmondson and Karoun Demirjian contributed reporting.
