Will Mike Johnson make it? What to look out for ahead of Friday’s House speaker vote
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Mike Johnson is in a better position now than Kevin McCarthy was two years ago, Eric Garcia writes. But he still has to navigate the Rubik’s Cube that is the House Republican conference. And Trump is watching. The House and Senate will convene on Friday for the start of the new Congress, giving Donald Trump a Republican trifecta when he returns to Washington 17 days later. The House’s first order of business? Embarking on the semi-annual tradition of cat-herding that is the vote for speaker.
At the beginning of the 118th Congress, House Republicans went through 15 rounds of voting that almost came to blows before they finally nominated Kevin McCarthy in the early hours of January 7, 2023 — only for him to be ejected a little less than nine months later. That in turn led to more chaos in October that culminated in the nomination of Mike Johnson, the little-known but mild-mannered, devoutly religious and highly ideologically conservative back-bencher.
All seemed to work out well for Johnson until last month when Elon Musk, Trump’s financial benefactor and consigliere, torpedoed a stopgap spending agreement and Trump demanded a debt ceiling increase. That plan blew up in Johnson’s face and he wound up doing what he and McCarthy did for most of that Congress: do a clean continuing resolution spending bill with the help of the Democrats because the “hell no” faction of his conference would oppose it.
The House GOP’s majority will be one seat slimmer on Friday, with only 219 seats compared to Democrats’ 212 seats. This will give Johnson significantly less leverage and a number of Republicans have expressed skepticism that Johnson should become speaker again.
