Majority leader race analysis at the Hotline:

[It is] conventional wisdom in political Washington that Rep’s Shadegg and Boehner have accrued enough support between them to force a second ballot in next week’s Maj Leader race. Indeed, just about the only people you talk to who don’t believe the race will reach a runoff are those toiling in a certain well-appointed leadership office upstairs in the Capitol.
Has the political “CW” been wrong before? Too many times to recall. But for a number of reasons (among them Shadegg’s rock star support in the conservative blogsophere and the absence of the sort of MSM scrutiny which Boehner and Blunt were subject to at the race’s outset) the momentum that had carried Blunt’s candidacy to the brink of inevitability a few weeks ago has hit a wall.
To be fair to Team Blunt, the wall they’ve hit is cushioned with the public endorsement of some 94 colleagues (more on that later). However, if Blunt’s claims of having more than the needed 117 commitments to wrap up the contest on the first vote are proven untrue this week, January 13th will prove to be the turning point in the race.
Having made his pitch to a conference call of the TX GOP’s House delegation the previous night, Blunt began the day on a high note, adding seven more endorsements from Lone Star State GOP’ers, including that of powerful Energy & Commerce Cmte chair Joe Barton. With these new commitments in hand, Blunt had 78 public endorsements to Boehner’s 37. More than doubling their rival, Blunt’s camp was riding high. Embracing the role of the frontrunner, Blunt spokesperson Jessica Boulanger, in one of her daily dispatches to ABC’s “The Note,” offered that it was “easy for Team Blunt to stay positive” with “100+ commitments — 78 public.”
But later that morning, Shadegg ended the wooing and hinting by issuing a release announcing his entry in the race. A week later, on January 20th, Blunt had added just eight more public commitments. Shadegg was the hero of conservative bloggers, ed boards and pundits. The race was frozen in place.

Read the whole thing here.