With the Republican party now selecting their nominee for the next Speaker of the House, there’s been some discussion of whether a moderate Republican candidate could secure enough Democratic votes to secure a win without the support of the conservative wing of the party. The data says that’s unlikely.
Not since 1856 was a Speaker elected with a significant number of votes from multiple parties, when Nathaniel Banks, a Republican, won the speakership by three votes with the help of Democrats and the American party, according to the below data. Since 1933, no Speaker has been elected with more than one vote from the other party(s).
The table below shows every roll call vote to elect the Speaker of the House that I could find since 1841. The candidates for Speaker and vote tallies are indicated in each row. The column “Minority Party Votes for Winner” is a count of the votes the winner received from outside his or her party (more or less — see note at end). Not every year has a vote. That might be because the vote that year was not a roll call vote. It might have been a voice vote or other archaic form of a non-recorded vote. Or it might not be labeled as a Speaker vote in the underlying data correctly.
| Year | Candidates | Minority-Party Votes for Winner | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2015 | Boehner, 216; Pelosi, 164; Not Voting, 25; Webster (FL), 12; Gohmert, 3; Jordan, 2; Yoho, 2; Cooper, 1; Duncan (SC), 1; Hon. Rand Paul, 1; Hon. Jeff Sessions, 1; Lewis, 1; Gowdy, 1; McCarthy, 1; DeFazio, 1; Colin Powell, 1; Present, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 2013 | Boehner, 220; Pelosi, 192; Not Voting, 6; Cantor, 3; Allen West, 2; Cooper, 2; Labrador, 1; Jordan, 1; Present, 1; David Walker, 1; Lewis, 1; Colin Powell, 1; Dingell, 1; Amash, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 2011 | Boehner, 241; Pelosi, 173; Shuler, 11; Lewis (GA), 2; Not Voting, 1; Costa, 1; Present, 1; Cooper, 1; Cardoza, 1; Kaptur, 1; Hoyer, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 2009 | Pelosi, 255; Boehner, 174; Not Voting, 5 | 1 | house.gov |
| 2007 | Pelosi, 233; Boehner, 202 | 0 | house.gov |
| 2005 | Hastert, 226; Pelosi, 199; Not Voting, 7; Present, 1; Murtha, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 2003 | Hastert, 227; Pelosi, 202; Present, 4; Not Voting, 1; Murtha, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 1999 | Hastert, 220; Gephardt, 205; Not Voting, 7; Present, 2 | 1 | house.gov |
| 1997 | Gingrich, 216; Gephardt, 205; Present, 6; Leach, 2; Michel, 1; Not Voting, 1; Walker, 1 | 0 | house.gov |
| 1983 | O’NEILL, 259; MICHEL, 155; Not Voting, 18; Unknown, 2 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1977 | O’NEILL, 290; RHODES, 142; Not Voting, 2 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1975 | CARL ALBERT, DEM, 287; JOHN RHODES (R), 143; Unknown, 3; Not Voting, 2 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1971 | ALBERT, 250; Unknown, 176; Not Voting, 2 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1969 | JOHN MC CORMACK (D), 241; Unknown, 187; Not Voting, 2 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1935 | BYRNS, 317; SNELL, 95; SCHNEIDER, 9; Unknown, 3; LAMBERTSON, 2 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1933 | RAINEY (DEM), 302; SNELL (REP), 110; KVALE(FL), 5 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1931 | J.N. GARNER, 218; B.H. SNELL, 207; G.J. SCHNEIDER., 5; Unknown, 3 | 2 | VoteView.com |
| 1927 | LONGWORTH, 225; GARRETT, 187; Not Voting, 19; Unknown, 5 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1919 | F.H. GILLETT, 228; CHAMP CLARK, 171; Not Voting, 6 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1917 | CLARK, 217; MANN, 205; OTHERS/PRESENT, 6 | 5 | VoteView.com |
| 1915 | CHAMP CLARK (DEM.), 222; J. R. MANN (REP.), 195; Unknown, 5; Not Voting, 1 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1907 | CANNON, J.G. (REP), 212; WILLIAMS, J.S. (DEM), 162; Not Voting, 14 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1905 | J. S. WILLIAMS (D), 243; J. G. CANNON (R), 128; Not Voting, 15 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1903 | J.G. CANNON, 197; J.S. WILLIAMS, 166; Not Voting, 22 | 4 | VoteView.com |
| 1901 | HENDERSON (REP), 192; RICHARDSON (DEM), 150; Not Voting, 10; STARK, 1; CUMMING, 1 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1897 | T.B. REED (R), 200; J.W. BAILEY (D), 114; J.C. BILL, 21; Not Voting, 19; F.G. NEWLANDS, 1 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1893 | C. F. CRISP, 212; T. B. REED, 121; J. SIMPSON, 9 | 3 | VoteView.com |
| 1889 | T.B. REED, 166; J.G. CARLISLE, 154; Unknown, 1 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1887 | CARLISLE, 163; REED, 147; Not Voting, 13; Unknown, 2 | 2 | VoteView.com |
| 1885 | CARLISLE, 178; KEIFER, 138; Not Voting, 9 | 2 | VoteView.com |
| 1883 | CARLISLE, 187; KEIFER, 114; Not Voting, 15; ROBINSON, 2; WADSWORTH, 1; LACEY, 1; WISE, 1 | 3 | VoteView.com |
| 1881 | KEIFER, 148; RANDALL, 129; FORD, 8 | 3 | VoteView.com |
| 1879 | RANDALL, 144; GARFIELD, 125; WRIGHT, 13; Not Voting, 1 | 7 | VoteView.com |
| 1877 | RANDALL, 149; GARFIELD, 132 | 2 | VoteView.com |
| 1871 | BLAINE, 126; MORGAN, 93; Not Voting, 2 | 2 | VoteView.com |
| 1867 | COLFAX (WHIG), 127; MARSHALL (DEMOCRAT), 30 | 4 | VoteView.com |
| 1865 | COLFAX (REPUBLICAN), 129; Unknown, 35; Not Voting, 14 | 7 | VoteView.com |
| 1856 | NATHANIAL BANKS, 103; W. AIKEN, 100; Not Voting, 18; LEWIS CAMPBELL, 6; Unknown, 5 | 22 | VoteView.com |
| 1853 | L. BOYD (DEM), 143; JOS. CHANDLER (WHIG), 35; Unknown, 21; Not Voting, 17; L. CAMPBELL, (WHIG), 11; P. ERVING (WHIG), 7 | 3 | VoteView.com |
| 1847 | ROBERT WINTHROP, 110; LINN BOYD, 64; ALL OTHERS, 25; MC CLELLAND, 14; Not Voting, 11; MC CLERNAND, 4 | 1 | VoteView.com |
| 1845 | DAVIS, 120; VINTON, 70; OTHER CANDIDATES, 19; Not Voting, 11 | 0 | VoteView.com |
| 1841 | JOHN WHITE, 121; JOHN W. JONES, 84; Not Voting, 20; HENRY A. WISE, 8; JOSEPH LAWRENCE, 5; WILLIAM C. JOHNSON, 2; Unknown, 1 | 0 | VoteView.com |
Notes
From 1990 to the present, votes are from the House Clerk’s website. Prior to that, vote data is from Rosenthal & Poole’s United States Congressional Roll Call Voting Records, 1789-1990, Carnegie Mellon University. Some of the historical roll call vote data were first collected & entered many decades ago and suffers from significant data coding errors. I am reasonably sure some of the candidate tally totals are incorrect.
To compute the minority party votes, I first assumed the winner was the candidate that received the most number of votes. Then I looked at the party totals for that candidate and assumed the party that made up the most number of votes for that candidate is the majority party (because I don’t know the actual party of the candidate). The minority party votes is the sum of those party totals excluding the majority party.