The new Congress got off to a stumbling start Friday, as Mike Johnson initially appeared to fall short of winning the speakership on the first ballot, before some last-minute arm-bending convinced two Republican holdouts to switch their votes. Johnson was elected speaker with 218 votes, the bare minimum.
Starting the year off this way highlights the difficulties Republicans can expect in mustering majorities to pass legislation in the 119th Congress. The party holds just 219 House seats to Democrats’ 215, the smallest majority in nearly a century. Not even President-elect Donald Trump’s endorsement of Johnson earlier this week, which he reiterated in a social media post Friday morning, managed to secure an easy path.
Kentucky’s Thomas Massie, who had already vowed to vote against Johnson heading into Friday, cast a ballot for the No. 3 House Republican Tom Emmer.
The floor broke out in murmurs as he was joined by Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, who voted for Ohio’s Jim Jordan and Florida’s Byron Donalds, respectively. Johnson then appeared likely to follow in the footsteps of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy, and need multiple ballots to win the gavel.
But Republicans held the vote open while GOP leaders huddled with Norman and Self. Both lawmakers also spoke to Trump by phone after their initial votes against Johnson.
More than half an hour later, the pair returned to the chamber, shook hands with Johnson and changed their votes, to applause from their colleagues.
Johnson said after the vote that he had promised the pair “nothing.” Self declined to get into the specifics of his conversation with Johnson and with other Republican colleagues.
“We had a talk about how we advance the Trump agenda. That’s what this was about,” the Texas lawmaker told reporters about his floor discussions with lawmakers. “I’ll say it a dozen more times, but this was about how we support President Trump as a House with a very narrow majority. How’s that gonna happen?”
Norman told reporters that there “wasn’t any quid pro quo,” adding that Johnson agreed to prioritize a list of topics “that he knew where we stood,” including the budget and the border.
“Was taking another hour in here worth it? Absolutely,” the South Carolina Republican said.
Norman also said his conversation with Trump wasn’t what moved the needle for him, as he already knew where the president-elect stood.
Johnson had spent the week trying to corral his conference, earning the support of Republican holdouts like Victoria Spartz of Indiana, Eli Crane of Arizona and Greg Steube of Florida. Another potential defector, Tim Burchett of Tennessee, warned on the social media platform X that the election would “go to multiple rounds,” but then voted for Johnson.
Allies of Freedom Caucus member Chip Roy had said earlier in the week they could be swayed if Johnson appointed the Texas Republican chairman of the Rules Committee.
Roy drew surprised gasps from the chamber when he ultimately voted for Johnson after initially declining to vote when his name was called. A handful of other Republicans likewise chose not to vote when the clerk first called their names, but then voted for Johnson at the end.
Following the vote, Roy and 10 other Freedom Caucus members sent a letter to their House Republican colleagues saying they voted for Johnson “because of our steadfast support of President Trump and to ensure the timely certification of his electors” on Jan. 6, when the House and Senate meet in a joint session.
“We did this despite our sincere reservations regarding the Speaker’s track record over the past 15 months,” the lawmakers wrote, while also making specific legislative demands, including on border security, spending, reversing certain Biden-era policies and election security.
Unifying the conference
Johnson’s detractors — including several who voted for him Friday — have said he’s done too little to restrain spending, decrying deals struck with Democrats to fund the government and provide more military aid to Ukraine. But in the previous Congress, Johnson was forced to negotiate with Democrats, who controlled the Senate, and the Biden White House. Going forward, Republicans will enjoy a governing trifecta for the first time since the start of Trump’s first term.
Ahead of the vote Friday, Johnson was formally nominated by GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain, who projected confidence.
“As chairman of the unified Republican conference, I can say proudly that we are ready to govern,” the Michigan congresswoman said, betraying no hints of the behind-the-scenes discord. Throughout her remarks, most Republicans stood to applaud repeatedly, while Roy sat stone-faced.
In his remarks nominating Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries, Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar needled the GOP’s difficulties coming together. “There’s only one leader who knows how to negotiate a bipartisan deal and then stick to that deal,” the California Democrat said.
Johnson could face more hiccups in the coming year, as he works to tame the various factions of his party and retain Trump’s blessing.
The president-elect’s popularity with the GOP base and his willingness to endorse primary challengers to Republicans who defy him means that most in the caucus have not opposed him when the spotlight is on. But despite Trump’s public pressure to eliminate the debt ceiling amid last month’s budget showdown, Roy and 37 other Republicans voted against the proposal, saying the now-frequent flirtation with national default provided them leverage to reduce federal spending. The debt ceiling will need to be raised again some time in the coming few months.
Congressional Republicans have turned on their leaders repeatedly in recent years. Speaker John Boehner faced a revolt from right-wing members that ultimately contributed to his decision to step down in 2015.
As for McCarthy, his post lasted less than a year after he struck a spending deal with Democrats, which led then-Rep. Matt Gaetz to force a no-confidence vote. It took Republicans weeks to eventually land on Johnson as a new speaker, and the 118th Congress ended up being one of the least productive in living memory. The proposed House rules for the new Congress would raise the threshold to file a motion to vacate the speaker’s chair from one member to nine majority-party members.
A festive mood
After the voting drama ended Friday, Jeffries and Johnson took to the rostrum to lay out their competing visions for the coming Congress.
“The American people need us, in this season, to put down our partisan swords and pick up bipartisan plowshares,” Jeffries said, pleading with Republicans to work across the aisle.
Johnson opened his remarks by asking for a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the New Year’s Eve attack in New Orleans that left 15 dead, before outlining an “America first” agenda. He pledged to immediately crack down on immigration and “finally finish the border wall,” and then to “give relief to Americans and extend the Trump tax cuts.” He also vowed to repeal Biden-era green energy subsidies, protect domestic industry from foreign competition, and to “roll back the totalitarian fourth branch of government known as the administrative state.”
Even as the 119th Congress kicked off with uncertainty over the speakership, the mood inside and outside the chamber was festive and light. Members hobnobbed and waved at their guests watching from the galleries above, while their children — allowed to join them on the floor — squirmed with varying levels of boredom.
As Democrats were snapping selfies and introducing themselves to one another before the vote, things on the other side of the aisle were decidedly more solemn. Facing another apparent round of infighting before the C-SPAN cameras, much of the Republican rank-and-file sat grimly. But when Johnson returned to the floor smiling, it became clear he would prevail.
The successful dodging of a drawn-out speaker fight drew kudos from Trump, who called Johnson’s election an “unprecedented Vote of Confidence in Congress.“
“Mike will be a Great Speaker, and our Country will be the beneficiary,“ the president-elect said on his Truth Social platform.
David Lerman, Nina Heller, Justin Papp, John T. Bennett, Jacob Fulton, Mark Schoeff Jr., Daniel Hillburn, Olivia Bridges and Aidan Quigley contributed to this report.
This report and headline have been updated.
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