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It’s easy to forget that after a group of House Republicans successfully ousted then-Speaker Kevin McCarthy, his successor, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson, was not the GOP's first choice.
Or the party’s second choice. Or its third. Or its fourth.
Rather, Johnson was the Republicans’ fifth choice when he was elected last year, reflecting a degree of weakness. In the months that followed, the Louisianan’s standing did not exactly improve, and in early May 2024, there was even an unsuccessful vote — triggered by some of his own members — to take away his gavel.
A Politico headline published at the time read, “Johnson survived his first ouster attempt. Making it past November will be harder.” The phrasing appears prescient seven months later. The Washington Post reported:
Johnson must run for the position again when the new House is sworn in on Jan. 3, and enough GOP lawmakers to deny him the position have already declared they won’t support him, according to two members who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.
While the Post’s report hasn’t been independently verified by MSNBC or NBC News, there’s ample evidence to suggest that Johnson’s future as Congress’ top Republican is very much in doubt.
After Johnson negotiated a bipartisan spending deal to prevent a government shutdown, several of his members rebelled. Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, for example, has already publicly said that he won’t support his bid to remain speaker. A variety of other House Republicans — Missouri’s Eric Burlison, Tennessee’s Andy Ogles, and Arizona’s Eli Crane, among others — have both slammed Johnson and hedged on how they’ll vote on Jan. 3.
Complicating matters, Donald Trump has reportedly expressed disapproval of how the speaker has handled the process to avoid a shutdown, and some Senate Republicans — including Missouri’s Josh Hawley and Kentucky’s Rand Paul — have made unsubtle comments this week about replacing Johnson.
Conspiratorial billionaire Elon Musk, meanwhile, held the speaker responsible for championing “one of the worst bills ever written.”
To be sure, the president-elect, GOP senators and the world’s wealthiest individual won’t have a vote when it comes time to electing the next House speaker, but their disapproval of Johnson is emblematic of his slipping hold on his gavel.
This is clearly not where the speaker expected to find himself the week before Christmas, roughly two weeks before House GOP members begin voting on who’ll lead them in the new Congress. On the contrary, after Republicans secured their tiny majority in the wake of the 2024 elections, Donald Trump effectively endorsed Johnson’s hold on the gavel, and the incumbent speaker expressed optimism about his position within the party.
That optimism is now gone.
There’s been some chatter about Johnson’s inevitable failure, though I wouldn’t go that far, at least not yet. The House’s speaker election is 15 days away, and the incumbent can at least try to mend several fences between now and then. What’s more, it’s not yet clear who, if anyone, might actually want the job if the Louisianan’s bid for another term collapses.
But the prevailing winds are not at Johnson’s back, and the Capitol Hill arithmetic doesn’t do him any favors: As a Punchbowl News report summarized, “Johnson can only afford to lose three Republicans on the floor, given former Rep. Matt Gaetz’s (R-Fla.) resignation and assuming all Democrats are present.”
Watch this space.