Jan. 3, 2025, 6:18 p.m.
After months of handwringing about Mike Johnson’s future as speaker, his election Friday to a full term only took a single round of voting, securing the Louisiana lawmaker’s position at the top of a raucous and at times dysfunctional House Republican conference.
Johnson won another two years as speaker Friday on a 218-215 vote, convincing two GOP holdouts, Reps. Ralph Norman of South Carolina and Keith Self of Texas, to flip their votes in his favor. One Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, maintained his opposition.
It was a day of history not just for Johnson. While drama shrouded the House, a new majority leader—Republican John Thune of South Dakota— was taking charge in the Senate. Thune replaced Mitch McConnell, who gave up his leadership post after nearly 20 years.
In his remarks to the full House after the vote, Johnson made no mention of the last-minute scramble to win the gavel and a call from the president-elect, or the speculation that he’d never get to deliver the speech he was making.
“I’m grateful for this nomination. I’m grateful for this election, for the confidence this chamber has placed in me,” Johnson told members.
Multiple times in 2024, it looked as if Johnson wouldn't survive his first term as speaker, much less get elected to run the House for another term. But he managed to stay afloat, surviving a vote to oust him in May and threats from his right after nearly every spending measure.
Friday could have gone either way for the speaker. It might have been a quick victory, or it could have devolved into the 15-vote slog that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy endured two years ago.
Johnson opened the day with an offering to the hard-liners who threatened to block his election. Minutes before the first vote was to take place, Johnson released a statement laying out a set of commitments for the new Congress, pledging to set up a working group of experts to work with the new Department of Government Efficiency, led by Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, to recommend areas in which to cut the size and scope of government.
Johnson also directed House committees to take “aggressive authorizations and appropriations reviews” and hold agencies that have “weaponized government” accountable. In his statement, he spoke of using the next two years to make spending reforms and eliminate trillions of dollars in government waste, but absent from his pledges were concrete changes to the process of passing spending legislation, one of the main grievances among his right flank.
After he initially sustained three GOP votes against him in the first round, it seemed like the House might descend into gridlock, unable to conduct any business until a speaker was chosen. But leadership didn’t close that vote, and Johnson met with Self and Norman, and then with a handful of other conservatives, to assuage concerns.
“We needed to press on Mike Johnson that we’re serious about debt, we’re serious about the border,” Norman said after Johnson’s election.
It was then that Johnson got some outside help, with President-elect Trump speaking to both Norman and Self over the phone to make the pitch to switch their votes. Both members characterized the conversation as lively, with Trump pushing the members to change their minds.
It worked. Both holdouts made their way onto the House floor to switch their votes, sealing Johnson’s victory. Norman and Self told reporters that Trump didn’t threaten to back a primary challenger against them, though some Trump allies threatened to do so in social media posts on Friday.
“I didn’t get anything personally, other than a commitment that things are going to change from the last 14 months—that there’s going to be a drastic change over the next 14 months,” said Norman, referring to Johnson’s tenure in the last Congress. Norman said he didn’t regret the hour-long delay caused by the holdouts.
Johnson’s future looked murky heading into the new year. He has just come off a bruising effort to pass a stopgap funding bill. Conservatives balked at the first version, which was packed with spending measures and routine end-of-year provisions. The final, stripped-down version passed only with the help of Democrats, enraging hard-liners, who said Johnson’s speakership in the coming Congress was in question.
After weeks of radio silence on the issue, Trump intervened earlier this week, throwing his support behind the speaker. The vote wasn’t just a test for Johnson now, but also of Trump’s ability to sway rebellious members in the House conference.
Johnson’s swift election gives him a political boost as he takes the helm of a House Republican majority with an even smaller margin than the previous Congress, and with an ambitious legislative agenda ahead.
Republicans plan a massive tax and immigration bill that could run into the trillions of dollars in the coming months. Government funding runs out in March, and Congress will need to raise the debt ceiling again by the middle of the year.
The speaker will have to do all of this with one of narrowest margins in congressional history and a conservative faction looking over his shoulder, watching for any deviation from his pledges. Conservative Rep. Chip Roy, who made a failed bid for the Rules Committee chairmanship as part of any deal to elect Johnson, released a statement along with 10 other members laying out their demands, including spending reductions, being given 72 hours to review a bill before a vote, and passing a raft of conservative policy priorities.
Rep. Tom Cole, chairman of the Appropriations Committee and an ally of leadership, acknowledged Johnson’s challenge ahead but noted the boost given by his election on only one ballot.
“I think this is going to be a challenging Congress—that’s nothing new—but, fact is, it all got done in one ballot, and that’s a lot better than 15, which is what it took last time,” Cole told reporters.
On the other side of the Capitol building, the atmosphere in and around the upper chamber stood in stark contrast with the sight of senators, both old and new, shaking hands and clapping backs, regardless of political party.
Nameplates to some offices were swapped—most notable being Thune’s installed on the door of the Senate Republican leader’s office. It’ll be the first time in nearly 18 years when it doesn't bear the name "Mitch McConnell."
McConnell—the longest-serving Senate party leader in history—had an animated conversion on the floor with Thune, who will take the helm of the ship and lead a chamber once again ruled by Republicans after four years of Democratic control. The two grasped hands and hugged.
In his first speech as the majority leader Friday afternoon, Thune reiterated that the filibuster will remain intact under his leadership, saying it will be one of his priorities “to ensure that the Senate stays the Senate."
"That means preserving the legislative filibuster—the Senate rule that today has perhaps the greatest impact in preserving the Founders' vision in the Senate,” he said.
Questions have arisen about whether Thune and Senate Republicans would attempt to unravel the filibuster—a 60-vote threshold needed to pass legislation in the upper chamber—in order to bypass Democrats’ efforts to delay or obstruct implementation of Trump’s agenda, which Republican leaders and Trump himself often call a “mandate” from the American people. In reality, the GOP’s 53-47 majority means that just a few GOP defections could derail legislative priorities.
Thune has previously said he would not change the filibuster, a position many in his conference support. Including the pledge in this speech is notable, especially in that it comes ahead of any possible renewed demands from Trump to gut the Senate procedure, as Senate Republicans continue to navigate their independence from the president-elect. Trump repeatedly called for the end of the Senate filibuster during his first term.
Thune and congressional Republicans have already been eyeing ways to get around the filibuster, including pushing two bills through budget reconciliation, which would allow Republicans to pass fiscal-related measures without needing 60 votes. The first reconciliation package is expected to prioritize border security and defense, and Thune wants to see it move soon.
Republicans in the Senate and the House have their eye on the big reconciliation bill this year, given the Senate’s limitations under the filibuster. But internal debates remain on the size and scope of what may be the Republicans' one shot at a sweeping policy bill this year.
“We’ve got to make sure this Congress is as strong as possible when we go up against the Senate on the reconciliation package, because there are clear debates on what the reconciliation package even looks like,” Self, one of the holdouts for Johnson’s election, told reporters.
