Johnson Wins House Speaker Vote After Late Talks With Holdouts
(Bloomberg) -- Republican Mike Johnson won reelection as House speaker, overcoming resistance from a small but pivotal group of conservative hardliners after a flurry of last-minute talks and with the help of a critical endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump.
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Johnson won a majority of the votes necessary after nearly all of the dissident ultra-conservatives acquiesced to his continued leadership. The Louisiana Republican initially fell short of the threshold and the vote was kept open as he conferred with lawmakers in a side room just off the House chamber.
Johnson’s narrow 218-215 win allows him the chance to lead a House with the slimmest margin of control either party has held post-election in nearly 100 years. It also underscores the difficulty Republicans may face advancing their own legislative priorities despite universal governing control in Washington.
Still, Johnson successfully navigated the divisions among Republicans in his first major test of the new Congress. Two Republicans, Keith Self of Texas and Ralph Norman of South Carolina, who initially voted for other candidates, switched their votes to Johnson after talks with the speaker’s allies.
Norman said on Fox News that he switched his vote after Johnson assured him that he would “fight” for hardline conservative causes in legislation. Self said he would not “get ahead of the speaker” on specific agreements Johnson made. Both congressmen said Trump also called them to urge they drop their opposition to Johnson.
The speaker said he told the holdouts he would “involve members at every level” but otherwise made “no promises.”
Even so, one conservative hardliner who voted for Johnson warned in a social media post that the speaker still faces discontent in his own party.
“There are many members beyond the three who voted for someone else who have reservations,” Texas Republican Chip Roy said on X.
Thomas Massie of Kentucky was ultimately the only Republican to vote for someone other than Johnson.
Trump has claimed a mandate and has pledged to secure passage of bold priorities, including a crackdown on undocumented migrants and, eventually, extensive new tax cuts. That’s on top of plans for deep cuts to US government spending being driven by Trump’s billionaire backer, Elon Musk, and basic needs like funding the government at all or extending the US debt limit, for which House Republicans have had to rely on Democratic votes in recent years.
The vote, which was held open for more than 30 minutes after the roll call, fulfilled Johnson’s prediction a day earlier of a one-round vote with just one Republican holdout.
Johnson’s victory was not assured. Disenchantment with Johnson’s leadership intensified in December after a bipartisan government spending deal he negotiated was torpedoed by Trump, prompting chaos just ahead of a government shutdown deadline. The president-elect demanded the House include a provisions to suspending US government borrowing limits for at least the first two years of his term.
A revised proposal which included lifting debt ceiling was then rejected by 38 Republicans and nearly all Democrats, even as Trump threatened to challenge Republicans who defied him in their next elections.
Lawmakers were able to agree a last-minute passage of a spending deal before the shutdown deadline. It didn’t include that debt limit lift, an issue which Johnson and Trump will have to confront again later this year.
The party will have to grapple with an even narrower majority this year. Republicans hold 219 seats in the House, while Democrats have 215.
That is the slimmest margin of control either party has held following any election since 1930, according to the US House of Representatives’ Office of the Historian.
--With assistance from Steven T. Dennis.
(Updates with lawmakers comments on assurances Johnson made to holdouts beginning in fifth paragraph.)
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