Once again, Jim Jordan is up for a House leadership position, and conservatives outside the D.C. Swamp would really like to see him get it. But once again, the D.C. Swamp has the odds stacked against him.

Jordan launched his bid to become the top Republican member on the House Judiciary Committee on Tuesday. While Jordan will have a lot of support from grassroots conservatives, as he did in his last leadership bid, that won’t help him much here. Committee placement decisions are, say it with me, made behind closed doors. Furthermore, they aren’t decided by the whole conference, but by the conference’s Steering Committee — a more establishment-friendly body where top leadership figures have a lot of influence.

Basically, this means that the establishment Republicans at the top of the heap who have seen Jordan and the Freedom Caucus as thorns in their sides for years will choose between Jordan and members who haven’t ruffled nearly as many feathers.

Jordan’s two opponents for the spot are Reps. Doug Collins, R-Ga., and Steve Chabot, R-Ohio, both of whom have proven themselves greater allies to GOP leadership than the more conservative Jordan. Additionally, Collins has been angling for the job behind the scenes for about a year now and appeared to have it locked up until Jordan began eyeing the position.

The Judiciary Committee has jurisdiction over impeachment, and Jordan has proven himself a staunch and capable defender against Democratic attempts to undermine the president so far.

“Jim knows how to fight the battle we are facing,” Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., told Politico. “He has internalized the facts and timeline. If he isn't the ranking member, President Trump will be without the most capable defense we could otherwise offer."

Gaetz added that if McCarthy doesn’t make Jordan the ranking Judiciary member, “he is actively screwing President Trump. And they both know it."

The House of Representatives won’t even vote on whether or not to reinstall Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., as speaker until January, but her campaign for the office is already creating a silver lining for Republicans.

Pelosi kicked off her first day back with a concerted effort to get her old office back by moving aggressively to drum up votes from fellow Democrats.

She also, however, has decided to make gender-based identity politics a central part of her speaker run, Politico reports. She and her allies plan to pressure Democrats into supporting her by warning that they shouldn’t remove the only woman on their leadership team when so many women will be joining Congress as freshmen.

Apparently, someone in the strategy department believes people who don’t already vote Democrat haven’t yet had more than their fill of identity politics and that making Pelosi’s gender a central part of the effort won’t alienate anyone who has.

And while Pelosi has the backing of many in the Democratic establishment, there are some in her party who see her as a liability. For example, incoming Oklahoma Democrat Kendra Horn is withholding her support for now:

If elected, Pelosi will be leading a lot of newly elected House Democrats from parts of the country where here name doesn’t carry the same kind of cache that it does in D.C. political media circles. Not to mention there are many in the conference who have been calling for her job since the aftermath of the 2016 election. Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, has been the most prominent face of that movement.

They may have a point. Many Democrats see Pelosi as their best chance of defeating Trump’s agenda through the next session and setting the stage for the 2020 elections. This belief, however, is a gift to the many Republicans and conservatives who see the wealthy, gaffe-prone progressive from deep-blue San Francisco as the perfect opponent to campaign against for the next two years.

In case anyone forgot, Pelosi tends to give her opposition quite a lot to work with.

Maybe Nancy Pelosi as speaker really is the Democratic Party’s best chance at taking back the Oval Office in 2020. If that’s true, the Trump campaign’s job is about to get a lot easier.

Sunday on LevinTV host Mark Levin's Fox News program, "Life, Liberty & Levin," Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and congressman-elect Chip Roy, R-Texas, discussed the 2018 midterms and why Republicans lost the House of Representatives to the Democrats.

"I still don't know what the House of Representatives, on the Republican side, was running on. I still don't know what the message was," Levin told his guests. "While it wasn't a blue wave by any means, why did [Democrats] take so many seats?"

Jordan said House Republicans lost because they failed to keep their promises.

"Have we replaced Obamacare? Have we reformed welfare? Have we secured the border? Those were the three biggest promises we made the American people," Jordan said.

"The message should've been in this campaign, 'We've accomplished what we told you we were going to do, more importantly what you elected us to do in 2016.' That should've been the message, but we couldn't say that."

"Republicans literally failed to do what they said they would do over the last several years," Roy added. "I think that this is a clear symptom of leadership failing to do their job."

House Republicans will hold elections for party leadership by secret ballot on Wednesday. Jordan is challenging Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for the minority leader position. McCarthy, the outgoing Republican majority leader, is widely seen as the front-runner to continue leading in the minority.

Roy criticized leadership for failing to give voters a reason to support the GOP in the election, leading to the Republicans' loss.

"Had it not been for the Democrats' blatant overreach in the Kavanaugh hearings re-energizing our base ... our base was demoralized and sitting back because the House leadership and the House Republicans weren't giving them a reason to support them."

As House members come back to Washington next week to pick their party leaders for the next session of Congress, Jim Jordan’s insurgent conservative campaign to take the helm of the incoming minority has two big issues to contend with.

Jordan's first problem is that all of his prospects hinge on whether or not the remaining House Republicans care to re-evaluate the approach of the last two years.

Establishment Republicans notorious for learning the wrong lessons from elections, or rather, only choosing to heed the lessons that keep them comfortable. Even after the number of moderate losses Tuesday night, the Freedom Caucus is still a minority on the House. That means they'll need enough non-caucus members to agree to a change of course to get Jordan across the finish line.

The other problem is going to be how the vote is held. As Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., and a Congressional Research Service report explain below, the race for minority leader is voted on by secret ballot, unlike the speaker's race.

This puts Jordan at a disadvantage to current Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., in one respect. Whereas McCarthy can expect a lot of support from moderates and the rest of the rank and file, most of Jordan’s non-HFC support is going to come from pressure on members from conservative grassroots organizations and constituents. Neither of those really matter when nobody can be held accountable for his or her vote.

That means that Jordan is going to have to make his pitch directly to House Republicans without the backup he would otherwise get from outside the D.C. Swamp.

On the other hand, a secret ballot could actually help Jordan’s vote totals, as fewer Republicans would have to fear backlash from their fellow party members (especially those in leadership positions) for voting against McCarthy.

Changing that would require the Republican conference to change how it selects leadership. This would require convening a committee appointed by the speaker and chaired by the senior Republican on the House Rules Committee, according to the conference rules.

Jordan's path to minority leader isn't impossible, but it's a long, difficult way to the top.

Democrats won the midterm elections in the House of Representatives, Nancy Pelosi is the front-runner to be speaker of the House again, and conservative Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, is wasting no time.

Jordan announced Wednesday morning that he will challenge Rep. Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., for the Republican minority leader position.

"I plan to run for minority leader," Jordan told Hill.TV.

"In 2016, the American people elected Republicans to come here and change this town. I think the president is doing just that, but I don't think they see the same intensity from folks in Congress, folks in the House of Representatives," he said.

"Have we replaced Obamacare yet? Have we secured the border yet? Have we reformed welfare yet? No, we haven't," he continued.

Jordan criticized House Republican leadership — McCarthy — for refusing to challenge the Democrats and "have the fight."

"I think all too often, we were willing to not even engage in the debate," Jordan said. He used the omnibus spending bill of spring 2018 that funded Democratic priorities as an example.

"When we were poised to win that battle — particularly in light of the fact that just a few weeks before that big fight, Chuck Schumer had shut down the government, and then he reopened it because the American people said, 'That's crazy' — we were in a good position to win, but we didn't even engage in the debate. That's what's got to change."

"Now that we're in the minority, that's about all what we can do is debate, but fight hard in the debate for the principles, for the things that we know the American people sent us here to do in 2016. Show them that we deserve to be back in power in 2020," he said.

Republican House leadership elections will be held next week. The record is clear. Under McCarthy's failed leadership as majority leader, House Republicans lost their majority. It's time for new leadership.