House Republicans on Tuesday evening picked Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) for their fourth nominee for Speaker, just hours after House Majority Whip Tom Emmer’s (R-Minn.) bid ended.
Emmer won the nomination after five rounds of voting, but withdrew after it became clear shortly afterward that the Minnesota lawmaker would have too many opponents to reach 217 votes on the House floor.
Johnson on Tuesday night won 128 votes, but it remains to be seen if he can get to 217.
The House has been without a Speaker for three weeks.
Follow along with live updates below.
Kevin McCarthy’s name is no longer above the entrance to the Speaker’s office.
Freedom Caucus chair optimistic about Johnson
Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.), the chairman of the conservative House Freedom Caucus, was optimistic leaving Tuesday night’s internal Speaker election, telling reporters “I think we’re gonna have a Speaker” after the conference nominated Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) for the top spot.
“If you’re going to change the status quote here, you’re gonna have to shatter the current power establishment, which is what you’re seeing right now,” Perry said. “It’s been a long journey that started in January, and some hiccups along the way, none of us take any of this personally, we’re not mad at anybody or anything like that.”
“This town doesn’t work for the American people and hasn’t for a long time. We’re on this journey right now to change that, and this is the next step in that journey,” he added.
— Mychael Schnell
Jordan, Scalise throw support to Johnson
The GOP conference’s first two nominees for Speaker on Tuesday night threw their support to Johnson.
“He’s done a great job on the Judiciary Committee. Always prepared. Always ready to take on the Swamp. The House needs a Speaker. And it needs to be him,” House Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) wrote on X about Johnson.
House Majority Leader Steve Scalise (R-La.) said in a statement that Johnson “is honest, hardworking, and principled – he is a great man and will make a great Speaker.”
Arrington: Johnson nomination ‘more about our conference being in a position to be led’
Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-Texas) said the shift to back Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) for Speaker came as a result of enthusiasm and respect for now-designee as well as working through their issues as a conference.
“This is less about the person who would lead us as our next Speaker and more about our conference being in a position to be led,” Arrington said.
“There are people who have not come on board with Speaker designates over the course of the last few weeks. You can tell there’s sort of a one side versus another side. Both sides have fallen in line to support Mike Johnson and it’s because he’s trusted and respected.”
Arrington said a big part of Johnson’s appeal was that he came from outside the initial leadership structure put in place at the beginning of the year.
“I just think this conference wants a new person, a new start, a new direction, a new business model that is bottom up, not top down,” he said.
— Rebecca Beitsch
Lawler on what changed lawmakers’ attitudes: ‘Three weeks’
Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) when asked what changed the temperature in the room after a tumultuous day for the GOP chalked the difference up to “three weeks.”
“I think I everyone has hopefully exhausted the infighting in their systems and we can move forward and get back to work on behalf of the American people and focus on the issues. Personality conflicts served nobody in there,” he said.
— Rebecca Beitsch
Johnson: ‘We’re going to restore your trust’
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) vowed to bring a “new form of government,” and to restore the people’s trust if elected Speaker, just moments after he clinched the GOP nomination.
“This is servant leadership, we’re going to serve the people of this country, we’re going to restore their faith,” Johnson said. “And this Congress, this institution of government, America is the last best hope of man on the earth.”
“We’re going to restore your trust and what we do here,” he continued. “You’re going to see a new form of government and we’re going to move this quickly. This group here is ready to govern.”
Pointing to the priorities of the lower chamber, Johnson referenced Congress’s support of Israel, while stressing the House’s “very busy agenda,” in reference to the appropriations bills that need to be passed ahead of the Nov. 17 funding deadline.
— Miranda Nazzaro, Mychael Schnell
Rep. Chip Roy (R-Texas) on what broke the dam: “Right guy, right time.”
Roll call vote a good sign for Johnson, but some members absent
Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) won the vast majority of the roll call vote Tuesday night, with all Republicans in the room except three casting their ballots for him, lawmakers said.
Reps. French Hill (R-Ark.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) and Mark Amodei (R-Nev.) voted present, according to multiple lawmakers.
However, at least a dozen Republicans were absent Tuesday night, meaning he didn’t get to 217 in the room.
The House is set to vote for a Speaker at noon on Wednesday.
The press is gathered to hear Johnson speak after clinching the GOP nomination.
The House GOP conference is beginning a roll call vote on whether members will support Speaker nominee Mike Johnson (R-La.) on the House floor, Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-Texas) said.
Reps. Bice, Cammack say women recognize Speaker’s race ‘is a no win situation’
Reps. Kathryn Cammack (R-Fla.) and Stephanie Bice (R-Okla.) held their arms around each other on Tuesday night and told reporters that women recognize the Speaker’s race is a “no win situation.”
“I think Kat and I have both supported every Speaker designate that has been put up but at the end of the day, like we can’t get there and this is an exercise in futility in my opinion,” said Bice. “So why would any of the women want to put ourselves out there…only to fail. It just doesn’t make any sense.”
— Miranda Nazzaro, Mychael Schnell
Final vote tally
According to a source in the room, the final vote totals were:
- Johnson – 128
- Other – 44
- Donalds – 29
- Present – 3
Among the “other” votes, former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) got 43 while Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) got one.
Johnson clinches nomination
House Republicans have nominated Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) for Speaker, a source familiar confirmed to The Hill.
He got 128 votes within the GOP conference.
Johnson vs. Donalds (vs. McCarthy)
Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas) was eliminated from the Speaker race in the second round of voting, and Rep. Mark Green (Tenn.) has dropped out.
According to a source in the room, the vote totals for the second round were:
- Johnson – 97
- Other – 34 (including 33 for McCarthy)
- Donalds – 31
- Green – 21
- Williams – 20
- Present – 3
The conference is entering its third round of voting with two named candidates: Johnson and Donalds.
Rep. Andy Barr (R-Ky.) on Tuesday night said that, “Members are starting to realize that nobody’s perfect. And that’s what we’ve got to realize. Nobody is perfect. This is not a personality contest. We don’t need the perfect person.”
— Emily Brooks
Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) said the 31 “other” votes “just tells us that we have work to do.”
He said Rep. Mike Johnson’s (R-La.) 85 votes mean “he’s got a strong position.”
— Emily Brooks
Fleischmann eliminated in first round
Rep. Chuck Fleischmann (R-Tenn.) was eliminated in the first round of voting, leaving four candidates in the running.
The tally for the first vote was:
- Johnson – 85
- Donalds – 32
- Green – 23
- Williams – 21
- Fleischmann – 10
- Other (including McCarthy) – 31
- Present – 2
The conference is beginning its second ballot.
The first round of voting for a Speaker nominee is underway.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) on Tuesday would not say if she would support a joint Speakership with former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) on the ticket or McCarthy himself if he put his name into the race.
“I want to hear more about it and understand how it works,” Greene told reporters, when asked about the possibility of a joint Speakership. “So I don’t vote for bills I haven’t read. I wouldn’t vote for something that I don’t understand.”
Asked if she could see herself voting for McCarthy again, the Georgia Republican said, “Well, I certainly supported him before, we were getting a lot accomplished.”
“I’ll tell you what I got from Speaker McCarthy — I got an impeachment inquiry without a vote and I got the Ukraine funding taken out of the defense bill. And those were things I personally worked on.”
—Miranda Nazzaro and Filip Timotija
Jackson: ‘We have to find somebody who’s smart enough to get 217 but stupid enough to want the job’
Rep. Ronny Jackson (R-Texas) said he’s feeling more encouraged about the latest roster of candidates, noting they are all outside of the original leadership team.
“I’m more positive because we finally found candidates that don’t seem to have a lot of baggage,” he said.
“We need some new fresh leadership, somebody that’s not already in that leadership pipeline.”
Jackson said the candidates also fall into another sweet spot.
“We have to find somebody who’s smart enough to get 217 but stupid enough to want the job.”
— Rebecca Beitsch
Miller: McCarthy could return to Speakership
Rep. Max Miller (R-Ohio) said he could see a future in which former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif) returns to his old position.
“At the end of the day, what the eight people and… this conference, I think will just have to come to, is that Kevin’s the guy, he still has the most support, and the minority of the conference, being four percent, shouldn’t dictate the whole,” Miller said, making apparent reference to the eight Republicans who joined Democrats to oust McCarthy earlier this month. “And I think we’re on a merry-go-round.”
“I think it’s very possible you could end up seeing Speaker Kevin McCarthy, and Matt Gaetz and crew, I think, are reaping what they’re sowing,” Miller continued. “I can’t imagine, I mean, how they wake up every morning thinking about how they destroyed Congress and broke the Republican conference and put us in peril.”
— Tara Suter
Williams says bringing people together ‘right in my wheelhouse’
Rep. Roger Williams (R-Texas), who is running for Speaker, acknowledged the conference is divided, but said, “we got to get that fixed.”
Asked if that was possible, he responded, “Of course it is. Anything’s possible. We got to get it done. And we’re the mindset is to try to get there probably more than ever tonight. So we’ll see what happens.”
He said the conference talked about “bringing people together, okay. And that’s and that’s frankly, right in my wheelhouse. Okay, bringing people together. How to bring people that have different opinions into one room, talk and agree that agree to disagree and come up with a solution.”
— Filip Timotija
Duarte says he — and others — will vote for McCarthy in first round
Rep. John Duarte (R-Calif.) says he plans to vote for former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) in the first round of the nominating conference and that others will join him.
“If he’s the top vote getter, I will stay with him and I think most of us will and we’ll build from there,” he said.
Otherwise, he says he’ll likely vote for the highest vote-getter.
“I think all the candidates up there are qualified to be Speaker. I just don’t know that anyone can get close to what Kevin McCarthy can,” he said.
He says he plans to vote for the conference’s nominee on the floor.
— Mychael Schnell
GOP to hold validation vote on Speaker nominee Wednesday
House Republicans plan to hold a confirmation vote at 9 a.m. Wednesday to see if their fourth Speaker nominee can get support from 217 lawmakers.
They will nominate the Speaker tonight.
A vote on the House floor has not yet been set.
— Emily Brooks
Hern says Johnson can get 217: ‘He’s the guy’
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) said he dropped his bid for the gavel because, “We’ve got to get a Speaker.”
“This has become more about individuals as opposed to our country and to our presence around the world. And Mike Johnson is a great individual, somebody will be a great leader for our conference,” he said.
Hern said he thought Johnson could get the required 217 votes on the House floor, noting he’s worked with colleagues across the spectrum of the GOP.
“We need somebody that’s bigger than an individual and he’s the guy,” Hern said.
— Emily Brooks
Williams: Time on nuclear submarine ‘polar opposite’ to Speaker chaos
Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) contrasted his time on a nuclear submarine to the current situation in the lower chamber.
“I have 500 days at sea on a nuclear submarine, which is the polar opposite of everything that we’re going through,” Williams, a Navy veteran said. “It’s extremely ordered, discipline-motivated.”
“If these were easy times, I wouldn’t be here,” Williams continued. “I’ve never been in politics before, I ran because I know we need better leaders, and that’s honestly why I’m here. So, if these were good times and easy times, I never would have even thought of running for office.”
But he said he believes “in our conference, our ability to pull this together. I think we’re gonna do it. It’s not pretty to see how the sausage is made. But I believe we’re gonna get there.”
— Tara Suter
The GOP conference will vote on a Speaker nominee at 8 p.m., Rep. Dan Meuser (R-Pa.) confirmed.
Hern drops out of Speaker race
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) has dropped out of the race, according to a source familiar.
He will instead throw his support to caucus Vice Chair Mike Johnson (R-La.).
That leaves five candidates in the race.
— Mychael Schnell
Hern confirms second bid for Speakership
Rep. Kevin Hern (R-Okla.) confirmed Tuesday that he will make another run for Speaker and predicted that the conference will start to unite behind one candidate.
“We got to get this done and everybody has a lot of energy around making that happen. I think you’re gonna see a lot of coalescing tonight to make this happen,” he told reporters.
Hern told reporters that there would be some “new faces” in the race, but suggested that others who ran for the Speakership nomination this week will also be back in the race.
“I think we’re all gonna be working on reunification, getting people to coalesce around a candidate so we have a Speaker tonight,” he said.
When asked if he has the confidence that one of the candidates will reach the necessary 217 votes, he said: “I do.”
— Lauren Sforza and Mychael Schnell