Colorado Republicans Ken Buck and Lauren Boebert were among GOP House members who didn’t support their party’s narrow nomination of Louisiana Republican Steve Scalise as speaker Wednesday as the chamber remained unable to conduct business until a speaker is chosen.

Scalise, the GOP’s majority leader, was nominated in closed-door balloting by the House Republican conference but will have to win over nearly all of his fellow GOP lawmakers to secure the gavel.

Amid mounting pressure over fiscal deadlines and war in the Middle East, the House has been paralyzed since last week when eight Republicans – including Buck – joined with the chamber’s Democrats to fire former Speaker Kevin McCarthy over charges the California Republican had lost the confidence of some lawmakers.

Scalise secured the nomination in secret balloting Wednesday by winning 113 votes out of 225 cast by Republicans, defeating his only declared opponent, U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, who was endorsed by former President Donald Trump. Jordan received votes from 99 of his GOP colleagues, with the remainder choosing someone else or voting “present.”

Jordan later endorsed Scalise and said he plans to nominate his former rival for speaker when the entire House votes on the position, but more than a dozen GOP lawmakers declared their opposition to Scalise or said they were undecided.

In a vote of the full House, which could happen as early as Thursday, Scalise can only afford to lose the votes of four Republicans in the face of united Democratic support for their party’s leader, Hakeem Jeffries of New York.

Boebert, who endorsed Jordan last week, said after the conference meeting that she intends to cast a vote for Jordan on the House floor.

“We had a chance to unify the party behind closed doors, but the Swamp and K Street lobbyists prevented that,” the Silt Republican tweeted on Wednesday. “The American people deserve a real change in leadership, not a continuation of the status quo.”

Boebert was one of a handful of Republicans who held out until the final vote in January when McCarthy won election as speaker after making multiple concessions, including allowing a single member to call for a vote to remove the speaker.

Buck initially withheld his support from both Scalise and Jordan by voting “present” in the GOP meeting, citing their unwillingness to declare that the 2020 election wasn’t stolen from Trump. Buck also told MSNBC that Scalise would need to commit to bringing Ukraine funding to the House floor for a vote.

Later Wednesday night, however, the Windsor Republican told CNN that he was prepared to vote for Scalise on the floor if his vote would make the difference in electing a speaker, though he added that after meeting with Scalise he wasn’t yet ready to offer his formal support.

“I think it’s going to be very tough for him to get there,” said Buck. He said he considered Scalise “a really good candidate for Republicans to try to unify the party” but was skeptical that could happen.

Buck said that although Scalise wouldn’t commit during their meeting to putting Ukraine aide to a vote, he seemed to understand Buck’s message that the U.S. needs to deal with the roles both Russia and Iran have played in conflicts with American allies Israel and Ukraine.

“Those countries are linked,” Buck said. “And we need to make sure that we are aggressive in how we deal with all of those countries, not just focus on one particular area. And so that was my message to Steve, and I thought it was well received.”

While neither Jordan nor Scalise would say that President Joe Biden won the 2020 presidential election, Buck said the party needs to get behind a speaker so the House can function.

“You know, what are the choices here?” he said. “And that’s really the bottom line. We’ve got some very serious problems around the world, and I think we need to find ways to move forward. It’s not an ideal situation. Kevin McCarthy wasn’t an ideal situation. Kevin led the effort to decertify the electors in 2021 on Jan. 6, so it is one of those issues where you just have to do the best you can.”

U.S. Rep. Doug Lamborn, the third GOP House member from Colorado, wouldn’t reveal his choice in the conference election but was counted as a Scalise backer ahead of the upcoming vote.

The Colorado Springs Republican, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday urged his fellow lawmakers to move quickly to name a speaker.

“There’s a lot of appetite” for the House to act quickly on aid to Israel, Lamborn told Roll Call. “And I know my appetite is to get a speaker today.”