Johnson reelected speaker of the House, despite initial GOP holdouts

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., was narrowly reelected to the position after initially falling two votes short. Johnson and his allies worked to convince two members to switch their votes, delivering him the 218 necessary to be reelected on the first ballot. The last-minute switch allows Congress to begin its work, despite clear divisions within the Republican Party.

Reps. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., and Keith Self, R-Texas, changed their votes to back Johnson roughly an hour and a half after the vote began.

President-elect Donald Trump endorsed Johnson earlier in the week and posted on his social media channel hours before the vote, which Johnson reshared. In the post, Trump called Johnson "a fine man of great ability."

The drama on the first day of the new Congress echoed the dynamic two years ago when Kevin McCarthy faced opposition from a group of conservatives to be elected speaker. After failing to get the votes, he negotiated concessions with his critics, including changes to the House rules. It took four days and 15 rounds of voting for McCarthy to be elected speaker. Nine months later, McCarthy was ousted for working with Democrats to avoid a possible government shutdown. That set off several weeks of chaos when several top GOP leaders failed to secure enough support to get the gavel until Johnson, then a rank and file conservative member of the House Judiciary panel, was nominated with unanimous support.
 
Johnson argued that Republicans needed to stick together to reelect him Friday because it was critical that the party move to enact Trump's agenda now that Republicans hold both chambers of Congress and will have the White House when he's inaugurated on Jan. 20.

The speaker told Fox Business Network a day before the vote that he believed he would get elected on the first ballot. "We actually have to fix everything, and that has to begin on Day 1, so we don't have any time to waste. And I think that everybody recognizes that here."

Electing a speaker is the first order of business in the new Congress and no other business can take place before what used to be a ceremonial vote. GOP leaders scheduled a vote on a rules package to govern the new session. That included a measure requiring that nine members would be needed to bring a motion to remove the speaker of the House and that only Republicans would be allowed to bring up such a resolution.

The House is scheduled to certify the 2024 election results on Monday, Jan. 6 — another reason why Johnson and GOP leaders need party members to rally around him.

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