Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday defied his most conservative critics to retain his gavel in the next Congress, overcoming threats from a group of far-right lawmakers leery of his leadership record and commitment to spending cuts.
The victory puts Johnson in the driver’s seat of the lower chamber just as President-elect Trump is poised to return to the White House for a second term, lending Republicans control of all levers of power in Washington for at least the next two years.
It didn’t come easy.
Johnson was initially on a path to lose the first round when three Republicans voted on Friday to elevate other figures to the Speakership post — two more detractors than Johnson could afford given the Republicans’ hairline majority. The math changed only when two of those Republicans flipped their votes — a shift that came with a nudge from Trump, who called in amid the long vote to lobby for Johnson.
The messy process grants Johnson the leadership seat he was after, but also forecasts challenges ahead as the Speaker seeks to unify the Republicans’ restive conference behind Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda beginning in the early months of 2025.
Here are five takeaways from Friday’s Speaker vote.
Johnson pulls off a stunner
Heading into Friday’s vote, Johnson faced stiff headwinds. Not only was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) promising to oppose his Speakership bid, but roughly a dozen other conservative Republicans were also withholding their support, with most citing concerns over Johnson’s previous willingness to join forces with Democrats on must-pass legislation like funding the government.
The stand-off brought countless comparisons to the marathon Speaker vote two years ago, when it required 15 votes over four days before then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) secured the gavel.
Many observers were bracing for a similar slog this week. And Johnson’s critics seemed poised to block his ascension — at least during the first vote, when two conservatives joined Massie in voting for another figure to assume the post while six others declined to vote at all, leaving observers to guess their ultimate intentions.
The three GOP defectors, by themselves, were enough to sink Johnson’s leadership aspirations. But rather than gavel the first vote closed, Johnson and his allies launched a furious lobbying campaign on the House floor targeting the two holdouts they deemed to be flippable: Reps. Keith Self (R-Texas) and Ralph Norman (R-S.C.).
That conversation eventually moved behind closed doors into one of the cloak rooms off of the chamber floor, where Trump phoned in to attempt to compel a change of heart.
It worked.
After roughly 45 minutes of noisy uncertainty on the House floor, Self and Norman emerged to change their votes in support of Johnson. The shift left Massie as the only Republican defector – and gave Johnson the gavel.
“What changed my mind? Mike gave us the assurance that he was going to fight for everything as it moves forward. He gave us the assurance, we trust him,” Norman said afterwards.
“There wasn’t any negotiation, there wasn’t any quid pro quo. He agreed to fight with a list of things that he knew where we stood, and I trust him.”
Trump brings Johnson over the finish line
Trump’s influence over the House GOP conference was in question in the lead-up to the Speaker vote after more than three dozen Republicans defied his demand to increase the debt limit last month.
On Friday, the president-elect put any uncertainty about his power to bed.
After three Republicans voted for someone other than Johnson on the House floor, Trump called two of those defectors — Norman and Self — and lobbied them to change their votes, multiple sources told The Hill. Roughly an hour after the roll call, the two Republicans threw their support behind Johnson.
Trump was golfing when he spoke to the holdouts, Norman said.
“He said look, y’all make it happen, let’s not let this thing run on much longer,” Norman told reporters, recounting his conversation with Trump.
Trump congratulated Johnson after his victory, calling the outcome “an unprecedented Vote of Confidence in Congress.”
“Mike will be a Great Speaker, and our Country will be the beneficiary,” he added. “The People of America have waited four years for Common Sense, Strength, and Leadership. They’ll get it now, and America will be greater than ever before!”
Johnson also praised Trump for intervening to prevent a long-drawn process.
“President Trump is probably the most powerful president — certainly the most powerful president of the modern era, and maybe in all of American history,” Johnson said.
“His voice and his influence is of singular importance.”
A tough road ahead for GOP leaders
Friday’s vote marks a victory for Johnson and his pleas for party unity heading into Trump’s second term. But the difficulties he faced in seizing the gavel — and the lingering concerns among conservatives about his leadership chops — suggest he and other GOP leaders will have no easy time appeasing the many various factions of the conference as they seek to overhaul major programs and institutions across the federal government.
Not only are they seeking to tackle some of the thorniest public policy issues facing Congress — from immigration and health care to taxes and trade — but their razor-thin House majority gives Johnson virtually no room for defections as they pursue partisan reform bills with little chance of winning any Democratic support.
Those dynamics led to McCarthy’s downfall in 2023, when he opted to back bipartisan bills to raise the debt ceiling, fund the government and provide aid to Ukraine — all of which infuriated the conservative Republicans who eventually pushed him out.
Johnson is also vowing to spread power more evenly around the conference by lending more voice to rank-and-file members in the process of crafting legislation. Such promises, however, might be easier said than done. Former Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his leadership team also sought to empower their rank-and-file a decade ago, but they backpedaled when that strategy created logjams on the House floor and threatened to sink must-pass legislation.
Johnson appears to be aware of the challenge ahead, but also says he’s up for it.
“It’s unified government, and the Republicans have control of the Senate and the White House and the House, so it’s a very different situation than the last Congress was, and they can hold me accountable for that,” Johnson said. “We’re going to have a member-driven, bottom-up process for the development of this really important legislation. And we must succeed.
“We have no margin for error.”
Freedom Caucus holds fire — this time
Roughly a dozen hardline conservatives, many in the House Freedom Caucus, withheld support from Johnson in the lead-up to Friday’s vote, throwing the Louisiana Republican’s path to the gavel in limbo right up to the roll call.
In the end, they all supported Johnson on the first ballot, keeping their powder dry — while also firing a warning shot at the newly re-elected Speaker.
Eleven members of the Freedom Caucus — all of whom sit on the group’s board — wrote in a letter to colleagues that they supported Johnson despite “sincere reservations” about his leadership over the past 15 months to ensure Monday’s certification vote goes smoothly.
At the same time, however, they laid out a series of demands for Johnson heading into the 119th Congress, including cutting spending,
“It’s just a clarifying statement about our position, none of it should be that surprising. None of it is stuff that we haven’t said many times before. But again, we gave the Speaker the vote, the Speaker is now the Speaker, it’s now his House to deliver and we better get busy delivering,” Roy said of the letter.
Asked about a timeline for Johnson delivering, Roy responded: “Quick.”
“I don’t know,” he said when pressed on how quickly it should be done. “You know it when you see it.”
A subtle nod to a motion to vacate
Johnson won a victory this year in securing a change to House rules that raises the threshold for forcing a vote to remove the Speaker. In the 118th Congress, it took just one lawmaker to bring such a vote. In the 119th, the number is nine.
That change insulates Johnson from suffering the wrath of just a few disgruntled lawmakers, as was the case with McCarthy. But conservatives during Friday’s vote also seemed to be sending a subtle message that they have the numbers to force a motion to vacate if Johnson strays from his promises of lawmaker empowerment and fiscal responsibility.
While only three Republicans opposed Johnson outright in the early stages of Friday’s Speaker vote, six others remained silent when their names were called — a move that sent a clear signal of discontent with Johnson’s style, even if all of those six would eventually vote for the Speaker to keep his gavel.
Additionally, 11 members of the Freedom Caucus penned a letter to their fellow Republicans on Friday suggesting they supported Johnson only to ensure that a Speaker was seated in time for Congress to certify Trump’s election victory on Monday.
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) said the message to GOP leaders was intentional.
“I think it is very clear: There are 11 of us on the letter, there were nine that withheld their vote for a little bit,” Roy said.
“I think it is very clear that things need to change, and I don’t think there’s a lot of wiggle room in that change.”
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