GEOFF BENNETT: From the House speaker race, to new fund-raising hauls in the 2024 campaign for the White House, there's some big election news to break down with our Politics Monday team.

That's Amy Walter of The Cook Political Report With Amy Walter and Tamara Keith of NPR.

So, lots to talk about.

Glad to have you both here.

Jim Jordan, he is shoring up support ahead of this speakership vote tomorrow.

What's the word from the White House, Tam, about a potential House Speaker Jim Jordan?

Steve Scalise, when he was the nominee for all of one or two days, Democrats were saying that he was somebody that they could work with.

What's the -- what's the word on Jim Jordan?

TAMARA KEITH, National Public Radio: It's not, oh, we can work with this guy, though President Biden was asked about the possibility of a Jim Jordan speakership about 10 days ago, and he was like, well, there are other people who I would have an easier time working with, but I will try, was basically the message.

I checked White House visitor logs.

Jim Jordan hasn't been to the White House during the Biden presidency.

He went to the White House a lot during the Trump presidency, including to get an award from Trump at the very end and various meetings and other things.

He hasn't been to the White House during the Biden presidency for things like a Christmas party or a congressional picnic.

It's just not a thing.

There is no relationship.

However, I have spoken to people who have known Biden for years and say, he will figure this out.

He will figure out how to work with whoever he asked to work with.

But let's just remember, Jim Jordan is actively investigating President Biden, pursuing an impeachment against President Biden, has basically railed against every budget deal ever, and now is potentially the person who the White House will have to deal with to keep the government functioning.

This could be a real challenge for the White House in terms of governing.

GEOFF BENNETT: Yes.

Well, there is the question of, can Jim Jordan get these 217 House votes?

There's also this additional question of, should he?

Should he be House speaker?

Should someone who actively tried to overthrow the election and thwarted with -- coordinated with Donald Trump behind the scenes to thwart Joe Biden's win, is that someone who should lead the Republican Party and who should be in the line of succession?

What does that say about the Republican Party?

AMY WALTER, The Cook Political Report: Well, that is the question right?

You -- if you go into the Republican Conference and had a vote that was completely anonymous, and said, how many of you really want Donald Trump as our nominee, majority of that conference would say, no, we want somebody else.

They will not say that publicly.

They say a lot privately too.

Same things about Jordan.

But, publicly, they're in this place that they have been really since the Trump era.

You make a decision to go against that wing of the party, you either vote for an impeachment, or you say something on the campaign trail, or you speak up and speak out against somebody like a Donald Trump, and you are punished in a primary or you are basically told that: We're not interested in you.

So, if you are part of that wing, I would call them -- and they would call themselves the governing wing of the party -- versus -- or we will call them the Trump skeptics versus the Trump folks who - - the people really liked Donald Trump.

GEOFF BENNETT: The die-hards.

AMY WALTER: Yes, the Trump die-hards.

The skeptics have a choice in front of them.

They either say, we're not going to pick up Jordan.

We don't know who's next.

We know nobody else can get 217.

And so we're going to live in this chaos of the government literally not able to function for the foreseeable future, or we can get all get behind Jim Jordan, who in the short term will allow Congress to function, but, in the long term, we're going to probably be back where we have always been, which is getting in a fight to keep the government open, because Jordan is not going to be particularly interested in negotiating with the reality, which is, there still a Senate controlled by Democrats, and they're still a White House, president.

So that's where that wing finds themselves.

They say, we want to govern.

We want to get things done.

We don't want any more chaos.

And yet the people that they're supporting, publicly getting behind, even though privately they're not happy with them, are the very people that are making this chaos a reality.

GEOFF BENNETT: Tam, using Amy's point of the short term, long term, I understand you spoke to a Democratic consultant who said, in the long term, this could be great for Democrats.

TAMARA KEITH: Right.

So Democrats do actually care about governing.

So, in the short term, it is pretty problematic to be facing down potentially another government shutdown in the middle of next month, right before Thanksgiving.

However, the campaign ads will write themselves is what this consultant was telling me, that they are going to be able to say, look at this extreme speaker of the House.

Here are these Republicans who claim to be moderates who come from suburban districts that Joe Biden won in 2020.

This person who claims to be a moderate is following the orders of an extreme MAGA Republican who was involved in January 6 and tried to overturn the election and all of these other things.

And they're going to try to paint, and will probably have a pretty easy time of it, paint all of these Republicans who will be running for reelection in 2024 as just part of that side of the party.

GEOFF BENNETT: And we should say a House speaker does more than just preside over the House.

He or she is also expected to raise a ton of money.

AMY WALTER: That's right.

GEOFF BENNETT: And Kevin McCarthy was a phenomenal fund-raiser.

AMY WALTER: He was.

(CROSSTALK) GEOFF BENNETT: He raised like -- what, like $22 million just this past summer for the for the Republican PAC that helped members of Congress.

Jim Jordan doesn't have a track record, one, for legislating or for raising.

AMY WALTER: Or for raising money.

He raised some money -- some money for himself.

But in terms of being able to get those institutional donors -- and those institutional donors are also the same people who right now are trying to organize around an alternative to Donald Trump, who are funding the super PACs that are keeping folks like Tim Scott and some of these - - Ron DeSantis -- in the game right now.They would like to see someone other than Jim Jordan.

They didn't mind Kevin McCarthy.

They supported Paul Ryan.

They gave money to Paul Ryan and John Boehner's organizations.

It's going to get -- be hard for them to write checks to Jordan, especially if they think, well, the House is going to flip anyway.

There's only a five-seat majority that Republicans have.

This may be what gives Democrats the advantage to win.

So they may be able to hedge their bets here and say, even though they're in the majority right now, we're not going to give the same kind of money, because they may not be here for very long.

GEOFF BENNETT: Well, speaking of fund-raising, we got the third-quarter fund-raising totals for the 2024 crop of nominees, to include also President Biden.

You see him there at the top with $71 million.

If you look at the number for Mike Pence, raised $3.3 million.

What you don't see there is that his campaign is apparently $600,000 in debt, and he had to lend himself $150,000 of his own money.

It really reflects the lack of traction that he's getting in this primary.

I mean, the fund-raising totals in many ways reflect the polling challenges that these candidates have.

TAMARA KEITH: Right.

And if you look at that graphic, it looks like there are two incumbents in this race, and then there's everyone else, and they are way, way, way behind.

And someone like Mike Pence has struggled to gain traction in the primary, has struggled to gain traction with voters, because anti-Trump Republicans see him still as the loyal lieutenant who talked about the broad shoulders and look dewy-eyed at Donald Trump for four years, until one day, when he crossed him, and he refused -- when -- as Pence would say, he stood up for the Constitution, instead of for Donald Trump.

And he became an apostate.

So he doesn't have - - he's a man on an island.

He doesn't have a constituency in the Republican primary.

He's making a go at it.

He's trying to get evangelical voters.

He's talking about conservatism versus populism and all of these big ideas that would have probably gone over pretty well in 2012.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy, in the minute we have left, are we at the point now where Republican candidates not named Trump, DeSantis, and Haley need to think about getting out of the race?

AMY WALTER: Well, even DeSantis and Haley don't have a whole lot of money behind them either.

And I think that's the reality right now, which is, if you look where we were at this point in 2019, there were a number of candidates who raised a lot of money, a lot more money than this tier of candidates under Trump is raising.

And it tells you about where the enthusiasm of the party is.

It is with Donald Trump.

This isn't about the fact that there are too many candidates or they're splitting the vote.

The candidates are not just showing up in the -- I mean, the voters are not just telling pollsters that they're supporting Donald Trump.

The fact that they're not donating to the candidates is another show of the lack of enthusiasm for an alternative.

GEOFF BENNETT: Amy Walter and Tamara Keith, we will see you back here next Monday.

TAMARA KEITH: Indeed.

AMY WALTER: Thank you.

GEOFF BENNETT: All right.