U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson was reelected to the chamber’s top job on Friday by a razor-thin margin that highlighted potential fissures among President-elect Donald Trump’s Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Johnson appeared to initially fall short of the majority he needed to retain his job in a roll-call vote that lasted nearly two hours, but two Republican opponents switched their votes to support him after lengthy negotiations, with at least one reporting receiving a call from Trump himself.
Johnson won reelection with 218 votes – the minimum number needed. Republicans control the chamber by a razor-thin 219-215 majority.
Following the vote, Johnson vowed to extend Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, which are due to expire this year and roll back regulations.
“We’re going to drastically cut back the size and scope of government,” he said.
Other big challenges will loom, including addressing the nation’s more than $36 trillion in debt, which Congress will need to act on later this year.
Friday’s vote was an early test of Republicans’ ability to hang together as they advances Trump’s agenda of tax cuts and border enforcement. It also tested Trump’s clout on Capitol Hill, where a handful of Republicans have shown a willingness to defy him.
House Republicans have been racked by internal divisions over the last two years. Johnson was elevated to speaker after the party ousted his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in the middle of his term.
Members of Congress milled around the chamber for more than half an hour after voting had concluded, where Johnson and his lieutenants could be seen trying to persuade the holdouts.
Representative Keith Self, one of three Republicans to initially vote against Johnson, said he had a “lively” discussion with Trump after doing so. He said he secured a promise that members from the party’s right wing would be included in efforts to shape high-profile tax and immigration bills.
“We needed more input from members like myself — not a chairman, not a leadership position — and I think that’s what we have done,” he told reporters.
Along with Representative Ralph Norman, Self returned to the House floor to vote for Johnson. A lawmaker close to Johnson, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the speaker promised to run the House in a “constructive” way but did not agree to any specific rules changes to win their support.
Representative Thomas Massie, a vocal opponent of Johnson who has long been a thorn in the side of his party’s leadership, was the lone Republican to vote against him.
Another six Republicans had initially declined to vote at all before casting ballots for Johnson.
Trump congratulated Johnson following the vote. “Mike will be a Great Speaker, and our Country will be the beneficiary,” he wrote on social media.
LAUNCHED OUT OF TURMOIL
The mild-mannered Louisiana representative, 52, was vaulted from obscurity into one of Washington’s most powerful jobs during three weeks of turmoil in October 2023, when Republicans forced out McCarthy and struggled to agree on a successor. The conservative Christian lawyer emerged as a consensus pick, but has since struggled to keep his party unified.
In a role that is second in line to the presidency after the vice president, Johnson will have a big job ahead. In addition to taking on Trump’s sweeping legislative agenda, Congress will need to address the nation’s debt ceiling later this year.
Johnson’s 219-215 Republican majority is likely to narrow even further, at least temporarily, if the Senate confirms two Republican lawmakers to positions in Trump’s administration, which begins Jan. 20.
Trump has nominated Elise Stefanik to serve as ambassador to the United Nations and Mike Waltz to serve as his national security adviser. Another seat is vacant, as Republican Matt Gaetz resigned from Congress when he was nominated to serve as Trump’s attorney general. Gaetz withdrew from that position as well in the face of allegations of sexual misconduct.
All three seats, which represent solidly Republican districts, are due to be filled in special elections later this year.
Republicans were also sworn into their new 53-47 Senate majority on Friday with Senator John Thune as their new leader.
Johnson over the past year angered some conservatives by repeatedly turning to Democrats to provide the votes to pass critical legislation, like bills to keep government agencies operating. He also faced a last-minute challenge late last month when Trump told House Republicans to scrap a government funding deal, demanding it also raise the nation’s debt ceiling.
A revised version of that bill – not including Trump’s debt-ceiling demand – passed the House only a few hours before the government would have shut down, and it received more support from Democrats than Republicans.
(Reporting by Bo Erickson, Richard Cowan and Katharine Jackson)
