House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) won his party’s nomination for a second term as speaker, teeing him up for a vote early next year even as rumors swirled earlier this week that some GOP lawmakers might prop up a challenger to his bid.
Despite those efforts, no lawmaker publicly challenged Johnson for the position, allowing him to run unopposed. Any opposition was also quelled after President-elect Donald Trump visited with the House GOP on Thursday and endorsed Johnson for another term, two lawmakers inside the meeting told the Washington Examiner.
Johnson secured the nomination as House Republicans gathered to elect their slate of top GOP leaders in the lower chamber for the next Congress.
One of the biggest races of the afternoon was the fight to replace House GOP Chairwoman Elise Stefanik (R-NY), who stepped down from the No. 4 position to accept an offer to join the incoming Trump administration.
Rep. Lisa McClain (R-MI) won the position on Wednesday in a 146-67 vote, assuming the position that directs the day-to-day operations of the House GOP.
Meanwhile, Johnson won his nomination through a unanimous consent voice vote and ran unopposed rather than through a ballot.
However, he will not secure the position until Jan. 3, when the entire House will hold its speaker election. That election will come when Republicans will once again be managing a slim majority, so Johnson will need to keep his conference in line to avoid a similar fate to former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), who didn’t secure the gavel until his 15th round of voting and after making several concessions to those in his right flank.
Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-FL) told pool reporters that while no one in the room objected to Johnson during the vote for speaker, his potential detractors see this closed-door election as a soft vote for him, with real negotiations to take place between now and Jan. 3.
The Freedom Caucus, the hard-line conservative caucus that has frustrated a litany of House speakers, met with Johnson ahead of leadership elections. There are negotiations underway with both the speaker and the centrist Main Street Caucus to ensure Johnson wins on the House floor with his razor-thin majority, three sources familiar with the talks told the Washington Examiner.
One of the discussions underway is dropping some rule change amendments designed to punish lawmakers in exchange for raising the motion-to-vacate threshold to nine members, up from current rules that allow just one member to force a leadership vote. That deal was brokered between the Freedom Caucus, who wanted to drop some amendments, and the Main Street Caucus, who wanted to raise the motion-to-vacate number.
Both House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-LA) and House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) were reelected to their positions in a unanimous voice vote, sources in the room told the Washington Examiner.
Rep. Richard Hudson (R-NC) was also reelected to another term as chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee after a successful election cycle maintaining their slim majority in the lower chamber.
This story is developing and will be updated.