Republican Mike Johnson won re-election to the House speakership on a first ballot on Friday, January 3, pushing past GOP hard-right holdouts and buoyed with a nod of support from President-elect Donald Trump .
A collection of hardline Republicans convened in the back of the House chamber during a tense roll call on the first day of the new Congress, one by one declining to vote or choosing another lawmaker. The standoff sparked fresh turmoil signaling trouble ahead under unified GOP control of Washington.
Initially, divided Republicans rejected electing him as speaker in the first round of voting – raising fears of a repeat of the chaos of the last two years of their House rule – after a nail-biting ballot that earned blanket coverage across US television networks.
In the end, however, Johnson was able to flip two remaining holdouts who switched to support him, drawing applause from Republicans.
The Louisiana congressman – who was boosted by several messages of support from Trump – needed a simple majority to be elected as Washington’s top legislator, who presides over House business and is second in line to the presidency.
Trump’s looming presidential inauguration raises the stakes of the speakership fight, since the House can do nothing until its leader is decided – including completing the certification of the 78-year-old Republican’s victory, set for Monday.
Johnson, 52, needed 218 votes in the lower chamber, where the Republican majority narrowed to 219-215 as Trump was sent back to the White House in last year’s historic presidential election. Johnson initially only won the vote by 216 to Democratic minority leader Hakeem Jeffries’ 215 – and there is very little doubt a Republican will ultimately claim the speaker’s gavel – but two party rebels dramatically reversed their initial “no” votes.
No one’s first choice
Trump threw his full weight behind his man early Friday with a social media post wishing him “Good luck” and “very close to having 100% support.”
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Johnson sought to appease conservatives in the hours before the vote by pledging to “reduce the size and scope of the federal government, hold the bureaucracy accountable, and move the United States to a more sustainable fiscal trajectory.”
Johnson’s habit of crossing the aisle to cut deals with the Democrats angered conservatives in the 2023-25 session, while fiscal hawks lined up to attack him for what they saw as weakness on the deficit.
Johnson was a virtual unknown to the wider public before becoming speaker but came to Trump’s attention when he spearheaded efforts in Congress to overturn the 2020 election. Far from his party’s first choice, the attorney and religious rights campaigner won the gavel in 2023 largely because he lacked the enemies on his own side that prompted the downfall of other Republicans.
‘Tired of voting’
He already had one Republican “no” on the scoreboard going into Friday’s vote, from Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, while a handful of other conservative hard-liners had publicly declared themselves open to a change at the top.
Johnson “was only electable the first time because he hadn’t held any type of leadership position, nor had he ever fought for anything, so no one disliked him and everyone was tired of voting,” Massie posted on X. “He won by being the least objectionable candidate, and he no longer possesses that title.”
The last time it took more than one round of voting to pick a speaker at the start of a new Congress was the very last time the body opened for a new session, in January 2023. Before that it last happened a century ago, in 1923.
