US House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson was reelected to the chamber’s top job yesterday by a razor-thin margin that highlighted potential fissures among President-elect Donald Trump’s Republicans on Capitol Hill.
Johnson appeared to initially fall short of the majority he needed to retain his job in a roll-call vote that lasted nearly two hours, but two Republican opponents switched their votes to support him after lengthy negotiations. He won reelection with 218 votes – the minimum number needed.
Republicans control the chamber by a razor-thin 219-215 majority.
The vote was an early test of the party’s ability to hang together as it advances Trump’s agenda of tax cuts and border enforcement. It also tested Trump’s clout on Capitol Hill, where a handful of Republicans have shown a willingness to defy him.
House Republicans have been racked by internal divisions over the last two years. Johnson was elevated to speaker after the party ousted his predecessor Kevin McCarthy in the middle of his term. Members of Congress milled around the chamber for more than half an hour after voting had concluded, while Johnson and his lieutenants could be seen trying to persuade the holdouts.
It was not immediately clear what led Representatives Ralph Norman and Keith Self to change their minds and vote for Johnson after first voting against him. Another six Republicans had initially declined to vote at all before casting ballots for Johnson.
Representative Thomas Massie, a vocal opponent of Johnson who has long been a thorn in the side of his party’s leadership, was the lone Republican to vote against him.
A Reuters photographer captured an image of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, who voted for Johnson, talking on her iPhone with the name Susie Wiles – Trump’s incoming chief of staff – visible on the screen. The House went through 15 rounds of voting over four days in 2023 before electing McCarthy speaker.
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