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Paul Ryan Earns 'Supermajority' of House Freedom Caucus Support, but Doesn't Get Endorsement

Paul Ryan Earns 'Supermajority' of House Freedom Caucus Support, but Doesn't Get Endorsement

UPDATE, 9:10 p.m. ET: Paul Ryan says he will move forward with his bid for speaker:

A supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus voted Wednesday evening to support Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for speaker, but the committee of hardline conservatives fell short of the votes needed to outright endorse him for the job.

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“A supermajority of the House Freedom Caucus has voted to support Paul Ryan's bid to become the next Speaker of the House," a statement said. "Paul is a policy entrepreneur who has developed conservative reforms dealing with a wide variety of subjects, and he has promised to be an ideas-focused Speaker who will advance limited government principles and devolve power to the membership."

"While no consensus exists among members of the House Freedom Caucus regarding Chairman Ryan's preconditions for serving, we believe that these issues can be resolved within our Conference in due time," it continued. "We all know that Washington needs to change the way it does business, and we look forward to working with Paul and all our colleagues to enact process reforms that empower individual representatives and restore respect to our institution.”

The Wisconsin Republican, who was his party's vice presidential nominee in 2012, was said to have enough votes to become House speaker.

However, Ryan said Tuesday that he would only seek the leadership post if he earned the endorsement of every Republican caucus. It was not clear if a supermajority of support from the often rebellious group of conservatives would be enough for him.

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