WASHINGTON — House Majority Whip Tom Emmer, R-Minn., emerged from a crowded field of candidates Tuesday to become Republicans’ latest nominee for speaker.

Emmer, the No. 3 Republican in leadership and the GOP’s chief vote counter, defeated GOP Conference Vice Chair Mike Johnson, R-La., in the fifth and final round of internal voting. The vote was 117 to 97, with five Republicans voting for other candidates, lawmakers said.

Emmer’s nomination comes exactly three weeks after California Republican Kevin McCarthy was ousted from the speaker’s office — the first time in history a sitting speaker had been removed. Emmer told colleagues he wants to go to the floor and hold a speaker vote on Tuesday afternoon, according to Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif.

But like the party’s previous two nominees — Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio — there’s no guarantee that Emmer has the 217 votes needed on the House floor to win the gavel.

“It’s either third time’s a charm or three strikes you’re out!” Rep. Marc Molinaro, R-N.Y., said of the situation.

Immediately after Emmer’s victory, House Republicans took a separate, secret ballot vote to see if 217 members were willing to back Emmer on the floor. Leaving the meeting, Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said it was clear Emmer was far short of that number.

“It should not be surprising to anyone that there is nobody in that room that is going to be able to get 217 votes as we speak,” Womack told reporters.

Rep. Dan Meuser, R-Pa., told reporters, “There are some holdouts” and estimated there are about 10 of them.

After Jordan bowed out on Friday, nine speaker hopefuls threw their hat in the ring for the third round. But during Monday night’s candidate forum, Meuser abruptly dropped out, and moments before any votes were cast Tuesday, Rep. Gary Palmer, R-Ala., followed suit, leaving seven candidates.

Tuesday’s nominating process took place by secret ballot and behind closed doors in the cavernous Ways and Means hearing room in the building named for the late former Speaker Nicholas Longworth.

To winnow the list of seven, the lowest vote-getter was eliminated. In the first round of voting Tuesday, that person was Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, the former Rules Committee chairman.

Rep. Jack Bergman, R-Mich., was voted out next, followed by Rep. Austin Scott, R-Ga., in the third round. Both Reps. Byron Donalds, R-Fla., and Kevin Hern, R-Okla., tied for last in the fourth round; Donalds dropped out of the race, lawmakers said, and Hern was therefore eliminated.

Emmer had dominated earlier rounds of voting by wide margins and secured support from a majority of the lawmakers in the room on the fifth ballot.

A GOP civil war has prevented Republicans from agreeing on a McCarthy successor. The GOP’s two previous picks bowed out after they failed to secure the votes needed to win on the floor, leaving the House in a state of unprecedented chaos with a possible government shutdown less than a month away and wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East.

“The world is burning around us, and American leadership is necessary. And you can’t have the full complement of American leadership if the House of Representatives is not functioning,” Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark., said on NBC’s “Meet the Press NOW,” emphasizing the need for his colleagues to move on and coalesce around a new leader.

“The world is watching; our adversaries are paying attention. And it does not, you know, cast a good light on the democratic institutions that we all have sworn to defend,” he added. “So again, let’s hope and pray that this week is it.”

Because of Republicans’ razor-thin majority and Democrats’ unifying behind Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York, Emmer will need the support of 217 of the 221 GOP lawmakers.

It’s far from clear Emmer will be able to clear that high hurdle. Some lawmakers, including Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Chip Roy, R-Texas, told reporters Monday as colleagues were meeting that they would not sign a “unity” pledge to support the speaker-designate before they knew who it was.

“I’m not going to do that,” said Norman, a Freedom Caucus member.

Former President Donald Trump, the most powerful figure in the GOP, had endorsed Jordan for speaker earlier, but he stayed neutral this round. Still, several of the candidates, including Emmer, Johnson and Hern, said they had recently spoken by phone with Trump, who acknowledged the difficulty of winning 217 votes in the House.

“That floor threshold is very tough. I said there’s only one person that can do it all the way. You know who that is? Jesus Christ,” Trump said Monday during a visit to New Hampshire. “If he came down and said, ‘I want to be speaker,’ he would do it. Other than that, I haven’t seen anybody that can guarantee it.”

Notably, at a recent GOP meeting, a lawmaker stood up and said even Jesus couldn’t get elected speaker in this majority, according to Rep. Mark Alford, R-Mo.