In the end, the Republican race for Speaker of the House came down to which candidate had the fewest enemies.
In the end, the Republican race for Speaker of the House came down to which candidate had the fewest enemies.
Cue Representative Mike Johnson (R., La.), a low-profile Louisiana Republican who emerged late Tuesday evening as Republicans’ fourth speaker nominee in the three-week span since former Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s October 3 ouster.
The unlikely speaker, elected Wednesday with 220 Republican votes, won the gavel after a long list of much higher-profile House Republican leaders failed to shore up enough votes from their colleagues to make it over the line: Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R., La.), Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R., Ohio), and Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R., Minn.).
First came Scalise, who struggled to win over a diverse group of detractors, some of whom preferred Jordan at that point or raised private concerns with National Review about his blood-cancer diagnosis. Seeing the writing on the wall, Scalise dropped out one day after he won the nomination, before ever going to the floor.
Then came second speaker-designate Jim Jordan, a conservative firebrand who lost his first try for the nomination to Scalise and gave a halfhearted concession speech to his GOP colleagues that rubbed holdouts the wrong way.
“It was anything but a concession speech,” Representative John Rutherford (R., Fla.), one of more than two dozen Republicans to oppose Jordan on the floor, told National Review on October 19. “It seems very clear that he blew up Scalise’s chance of getting the minority [of detractors] to come along with him.”
After winning the House GOP’s speaker nomination on October 13, Jordan immediately hit a wall of determined opposition, too. That same day, National Review reported that members were already privately name-checking Johnson as a strong dark-horse candidate. But the Louisiana Republican kept his cards close to his vest, telling NR on October 17 that he was “committed” to then-speaker designate Jordan and “trying to help” the Ohio Republican get to 217 on the floor.
Jordan barreled through three floor votes, hoping that moderate Republican holdouts’ public opposition to his candidacy would abate once their anti-Jordan votes became public on the floor. His surrogates adopted an intense pressure campaign that harnessed grassroots conservative groups and firebrand media personalities. The plan backfired spectacularly once holdouts began releasing statements that their families were receiving death threats for opposing Jordan’s bid. Jordan only dropped out of the race after losing the nomination by another secret-ballot vote on October 20.
At that point, the race became a free-for all. Majority Whip Tom Emmer emerged as the early favorite in a hotly contested race between nine candidates, including Johnson. Emmer won the nomination on October 24, but soon struggled to fend off right-wing opposition from former President Donald Trump and a number of hardline Republican members, some of whom explicitly cited the Minnesota Republican’s vote to certify the 2020 election and codify same-sex marriage as their reasons for opposing him. Emmer dropped out of the race just four hours after winning the nomination.
A sense of extreme desperation and exhaustion then set in among the House GOP, and the conventional wisdom began shifting toward Johnson. The former Republican Study Committee Chairman was technically in leadership in his role as House GOP vice conference chair, but was not perceived as being of leadership, or knee-deep in the rivalries that consumed so much of McCarthy’s brief tenure.
A slight sense of panic surged among some McCarthy critics late Tuesday evening, when Johnson dispatched Byron Donalds (R., Fla.) handily by a 128–29 vote but a stunning 43 Republicans cast votes for McCarthy — who was not even a declared candidate at that point. McCarthy detractors sincerely believe that the California Republican was pulling strings behind the scenes in an effort to reclaim his old position.
Detractors’ worries about a McCarthy rerun somewhat dissipated after a follow-up vote roll-call vote of acclamation for Johnson in conference, when only three Republicans — French Hill (R., Ark.), Thomas Massie (R., Ky.), and Mark Amodei (R., Nev.). — voted “present” and none voted against.
But the level of McCarthy support in conference still rubbed many members the wrong way, particularly those who voted with a united Democratic caucus on October 3 to remove him.
“Kevin McCarthy tried to derail this process over the last three weeks, tried to undermine it behind the scenes every one of the speaker candidates, and, thankfully was not able to successfully do that to Mike Johnson,” Representative Bob Good (R., Va.) told National Review late Tuesday evening. “I think he further revealed who he is and what he is. He also tried to get folks to withhold their votes and try to bring him back somehow. Thankfully, the conference resoundingly rejected that.”
“We gotta let America know that the lobbyists don’t run this town, and the special interests,” Representative Tim Burchett (R., Tenn.), one of the eight Republicans who voted to remove McCarthy earlier this month, told National Review late Tuesday evening. “We got to get out of bed with the war pimps at the Pentagon.”
In the end, opposition to McCarthy and many of his would-be successors ended up being personality-driven.
“I don’t think the agenda is going to change” under Johnson, says House Budget Committee chairman Jodey Arrington (R., Texas), who gave the Louisiana Republican’s nomination speech Tuesday evening. “I think it’s going to be just a new energy and a new way of running our conference.”
It’s true that Johnson is viewed by his colleagues as being staunchly conservative, joining many of his House GOP colleagues in voting to decertify the 2020 presidential election results and having a long record of opposing same-sex marriage. But despite this conservative record, he’s no media-attention obsessed flame-thrower, and is viewed by even his moderate GOP colleagues as a trustworthy, low-profile, and genuinely easygoing member.
“Mike Johnson is a sincerely excellent person,” Representative John Duarte (R., Calif.), a freshman and close McCarthy ally, told National Review Tuesday evening. “He’s far more conservative than I am on many fronts. But he is a very good person who’s made almost no enemies while he’s been in Congress.”
But there’s one thing moderate Republicans like Duarte will miss under a Johnson speakership — McCarthy’s fundraising prowess.
Duarte, a California Republican who eked out a victory last fall in his Central Valley swing seat, said he is worried about Johnson’s ability to match McCarthy in this department. He pointed to Johnson’s third-quarter fundraising haul: less than $80,000, according to Federal Election Commission filings. “That’s not a leadership haul of campaign support,” Duarte said. “So there is a very large disconnect between our current new speaker and Kevin McCarthy in terms of fundraising and winning the majority.”
“We’ll see how he does,” Duarte added. “Maybe the speaker moniker alone will carry him to riches and all kinds of fundraising.”