WASHINGTON – Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., has already spent more than a year trying to organize a group of House Republicans for whom infighting and chaos have become the norm.
But that challenge pales in comparison with the gauntlet that could await him on Friday when he will try to hold on to his position and lead House Republicans through two more years under a second Donald Trump presidency where his party also holds control of the Senate. The vote to elect the next speaker comes as the GOP will have even smaller margins of power.
The soft-spoken speaker – who himself came into power after former Speaker Kevin McCarthy was toppled in a GOP revolt – has his conference’s nominal support after winning a vote in November.
But a tumultuous, last-minute spending deal to avoid a government shutdown in December has prompted a handful of Republicans to publicly question whether they will vote for Johnson to serve another term in leadership, raising the possibility that the House will be frozen in limbo for days or weeks without a speaker. That could create complications for the certification of electoral votes on Jan. 6 and with Trump’s inauguration fast approaching on Jan. 20.
Members can’t tackle any other business until someone is chosen. Johnson has noted this and said Congress should get organized quickly for national security purposes, citing the fatal truck attack in New Orleans early in the morning on New Year’s Day.
Whether Johnson emerges with the same leadership title may depend on Trump’s endorsement. The former and future president threw his weight behind the Louisiana Republican on Monday, saying in a statement on Truth Social that Johnson has his “Complete & Total Endorsement.”
“Speaker Mike Johnson is a good, hard working, religious man,” Trump wrote. “He will do the right thing, and we will continue to WIN.”
US Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (C) speaks with reporters at the US Capitol, in Washington, DC on December 20, 2024.
How is a speaker elected?
When the House convenes on Friday, they’ll immediately begin voting to elect a speaker.
A speaker is elected when a majority of House members vote for the same person. On Friday, that will be a threshold of 218 votes. Republicans will have 219 members and Democrats will have 215.
Members can vote for either party’s nominee – Johnson for the Republicans, and current House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., for the Democrats. They can also vote for anyone else (even if they don’t serve in the House), withhold their vote, or vote “present.” Voting “present” means technically casting a ballot without supporting a specific person.
A candidate needs to win a majority of members voting to become speaker. People who don’t vote or vote “present” don’t count toward that total, which lowers the threshold. That’s how McCarthy won the gavel last time.
If all members are present and voting and no candidate receives 218 votes, they vote again.
Why might Johnson lose?
At least one House Republican – Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky. – has said he will not support Johnson on Friday no matter what.
All House Democrats are expected to vote for Jeffries, so Johnson must win every other present, voting Republican member’s support to become speaker.
That gives each Republican lawmaker significant leverage to force concessions from Johnson in exchange for their vote. For example, votes on favored bills or promises to approach government spending negotiations differently. At least one House Republican, Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana, has already released a list of demands for Johnson.
But some members still may not want to support him, or prefer other candidates, such as Rep. Tom Emmer, R-Minn., the No. 3 Republican leader in the House. House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, a founding member of the ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus, could be another option.
Several Republicans are frustrated with Johnson’s handling of last month’s government funding extension that narrowly dodged a serious shutdown. Johnson first backed a nearly 1,600-page bipartisan spending deal full of unrelated policies just days before the funding deadline, but Trump and ally Elon Musk publicly opposed it.
The final deal was a pared-down funding extension and a promise to raise the debt ceiling in 2025 that dozens of House Republicans voted against.
House Freedom Caucus Chair Rep. Andy Harris, R-Md. and Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., have also said they haven’t made up their mind on whether to support Johnson.
House Speaker Mike Johnson welcomes President-elect Donald Trump to a Republican meeting on Nov. 13, 2024, in Washington, D.C.
So could Johnson still win the speakership?
The last time House Republicans couldn’t elect a speaker is not a distant memory for most lawmakers.
When a small group of GOP members joined with Democrats in a historic vote to kick McCarthy out of the speakership in October 2023, the chamber spent three weeks paralyzed and in limbo as they repeatedly failed to coalesce around another Republican. Johnson eventually emerged as a dark-horse conservative that multiple factions could support.
This time, the stakes are higher. Republicans now have a coveted trifecta in Washington, controlling the House, Senate and White House.
Any time spent on internal fights is time they are not able to act on Trump’s agenda – creating a powerful incentive to elect a speaker and get on with their GOP priorities.
Rep. Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., told ABC on Sunday that ousting McCarthy was “the single stupidest thing I’ve ever seen in politics.”
“Removing Mike Johnson would equally be as stupid,” he added. “These folks are playing with fire, and if they think they’re somehow going to get a more conservative speaker, they’re kidding themselves.”
How has Trump’s endorsement changed things?
Several House Republicans who had publicly aired doubts about Johnson said they had shifted their thinking following Trump’s endorsement on Monday.
“I will be voting for Mike Johnson as Speaker on January 3rd, and any report suggesting otherwise is dead wrong,” wrote formerly undecided Rep. Josh Brecheen, R-Okla., on X. “I believe Speaker Johnson and President Donald Trump are the winning combination to deliver results within our window of opportunity.”
Another member who had been undecided on Johnson, Rep. Troy Nehls, R-Texas, told Axios that Trump’s endorsement “is significant and may save Johnson… If DJT supports Johnson we need to rally around Johnson.”
Musk also wrote on X under Trump’s endorsement: “I feel the same way! You have my full support.”
What happens if Republicans can’t elect a speaker?
The House will be stuck until a leader is chosen: No other business can happen in the House without a leader.
If no speaker is chosen by Monday, however, experts disagree on whether Congress can meet to formalize the results of the 2024 presidential election by counting the Electoral College votes. It’s a responsibility assigned to Congress in the Constitution.
David Super, an expert on congressional procedure who teaches at Georgetown University, said Congress should still be able to perform its duty without a speaker because the House and Senate will be meeting in a joint session. Vice President Kamala Harris will be presiding over Trump’s win – and her defeat – in the 2024 election.
“It isn’t the house meeting as the House. It is the House members and the senators sitting in the House chamber counting electoral votes,” he said. “If the Democrats had the same mentality as the Republicans did four years ago, they could raise objections to electoral votes, which couldn’t be resolved because the House couldn’t meet. But that’s not the way the Democrats operate, and if they did, there would be ways around it.”
But Florida State University law professor Michael Morley disagreed. He said a speaker needs to be in place to approve rules for Monday, to appoint the tellers who read off the state certificates, and even to put the House into recess so the Senate can come over for the joint session.
“We’ve never had a situation in American history where the House has failed to organize in time in order to be able to count electoral votes,” Morley said. “Particularly given the gravity of the stakes at issue, I certainly don’t think that this will be an exception where members would be willing to drive the House into uncharted territory by trying to play games.”
Rep. Jamie Raskin, formerly a 25-year professor of constitutional law, told reporters during a panel hosted by the State Democracy Defenders Action nonprofit that he’s going to spend the weekend researching the question of how Congress counts Electoral College votes if lawmakers can’t elect a House speaker before then.
“The question is how can we proceed if we don’t have a speaker of the House at that point,” Raskin said. “I don’t think there’s any question but that we will meet on Jan. 6.”
Sarah Wire and Bart Jansen contributed to this report.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Will Mike Johnson lose job as House Speaker? Pivotal House vote looms.
