GOP leader: ‘I believe there will be a vote today’ on House debt ceiling plan

House GOP leaders expressed confidence Friday morning that they would move a vote on raising the debt ceiling one day after they had to pull their Speaker’s measure from a planned House floor vote. 

Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.) said “just a handful of members” had a problem with the bill that was pulled from a scheduled House vote on Thursday. 

{mosads}Cantor made the remark before a meeting of the House GOP conference on Friday morning. He said GOP leaders were going to talk to their members when he asked about the possibility that Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) bill would be changed. 

At the start of the meeting, Boehner urged his members to refrain from attacking each other and avoid second guessing decisions that had been made, according to Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio). 

GOP members are meeting against an increasingly turbulent economic backdrop. The nation’s economy grew at a worse-than-expected 1.3 percent rate in the second quarter of the year, and estimates on first-quarter growth were downgraded to 0.4 percent from an already slow 1.9.

Stocks tumbled more than 100 points on the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the opening bell, before picking up some of those losses in early morning trading.

President Obama is expected to speak about the economy and the debt talks on Friday morning.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) announced plans to move toward a Senate vote on his own rival measure to raise the debt ceiling. 

Reid described his legislation as “the last train” and implored Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) to join him in negotiating a bipartisan agreement that could pass the Senate with 60 votes.

Reid said if the Senate begins on Friday to move legislation to raise the debt limit, it would take four days to pass it through the upper chamber. That means the Democratic plan to raise the debt limit would pass no sooner than Aug. 2. 

“Too much is at stake to waste even one more minute,” Reid said. “The last train is leaving the station. This is our last chance to avert a default.”

Despite their struggles on Thursday, GOP leaders voiced optimism ahead of the meeting.

Hensarling said, “I believe there will be a vote today” in response to a question about whether there will be a vote on Friday. 

“We’ve got a plan,” said Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) as he walked to the conference meeting. McCarthy declined to comment further. 

The House was originally scheduled to vote on the proposal at 6 p.m. Thursday, but that was postponed because the GOP lacked the votes to pass it.

According to The Hill’s informal Whip List, 25 Republicans are either planning to vote against Speaker John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) proposal or are leaning toward voting no. Many other members are publicly undecided on the vote. 

GOP leaders can only lose about 23 votes if Democrats are unified against the Boehner measure.

This story was last updated at 11:26 a.m.