Mike Johnson Reelected Speaker As House GOP Closes Ranks ― For Now
WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) won reelection to the chamber’s top job Friday, but the victory was marred slightly by last-minute holdouts.
The close call offered a dramatic vision of what Republican lawmaking might look like for the next two years.
The vote was 218-215 in Johnson’s favor over House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.). After a lengthy delay, Johnson received the votes of every House Republican with the exception of Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). All Democrats voted for Jeffries.
While Johnson’s win was technically on the first and only ballot, he won only due to last-minute vote changes by two House Republicans, dragging the vote out by about an extra 45 minutes ― a situationreminiscent of the prescription drug bill vote in 2003 that Republicans held open for almost three hours.
Friday’s standoff was only resolved after President-elect Donald Trump spoke by phone off the House floor with two of the holdouts, Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas), getting them to switch their votes in Johnson’s favor.
Self said that in the conversation with Trump, he extracted from Johnson a promise about how House Republicans would approach their big legislation in the coming months.
“I think we came to agreement with the speaker that we’ll have a very strong negotiating team when it comes to the reconciliation package, which is Donald Trump’s number one priority,” Self told reporters afterward. “We had a lively conversation.”
After the conversation, Johnson approached the rostrum with Norman and Self, who told the clerk to change their votes. Johnson shook their hands and the Republican side of the room burst into applause.
The win meant Republicans avoided a repeat of the spectacle of 2023, when then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) needed 15 rounds of voting to clinch the speakership. At the same time, it also showed how tenuous Johnson’s hold on the majority may be.
An example of that came quickly after the vote, when the House Freedom Caucus, a group of hard-line conservative and libertarian members, issued a list of demands of Johnson, including having lawmakers stay in Washington five days week instead of the current three to four, and opening up legislation to amendments on the House floor.
The group also asked Johnson to stop relying on Democratic votes to pass spending legislation, an issue that arose in December when Johnson largely gave in to Democratic demands in a stopgap spending bill.
A spokesperson for Johnson had no response to the list, referring a reporter instead to Johnson’s post-vote victory speech.
The episode also highlighted what a crucial role Trump may play going forward, to both Johnson and his legislative agenda.
While Trump was reportedly critical of Johnson’s handling of a year-end temporary spending deal, he had also publicly endorsed Johnson and did so again Friday morning.
“A win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party, and yet another acknowledgment of our 129 year most consequential Presidential Election!!” Trump posted on social media.
While Johnson won, as had been expected ― and while he can say that he, unlike McCarthy, did not need multiple votes to do so ― it’s unclear whether the deep divisions that haunted House Republicans in the just-concluded 118th Congress will return for the 119th.
Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-Wis.) said he didn’t think the delay hinted at trouble for the House GOP ahead. But he did say some of his colleagues “need to make their minds right.”
“The folks that are voting or didn’t vote for Mike Johnson today, we share a lot of common goals. But we have to understand that Donald Trump got a mandate and the Republican Party got a mandate. And these folks need to act like that,” Van Orden told HuffPost.
In his speech, Johnson also claimed a mandate, vowing that Republicans would extend temporary tax cuts Trump enacted in his first term, support expedited permitting for oil drilling projects, and beef up border security.
“That’s the number one priority,” Johnson said. “In coordination with President Trump, this Congress will give our border and immigration enforcement agents the resources they will need to do their job. We will secure the border and deport illegal, criminal illegal aliens and finally finish building the border wall.”
In his remarks, Johnson said nothing about the difficulty he’ll likely face enacting Trump’s agenda with such a slim majority ― though, given the day’s events, he probably didn’t need to.
