WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson is starting the laborious combat for his gavel, a weeks-long marketing campaign that begins Wednesday throughout inner Home Republican management elections and can set up the brand new energy facilities in Congress for a Washington dominated by President-elect Donald Trump.
Whereas Johnson has no severe challenger, he faces dissent inside his ranks, notably from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus withholding their votes as leverage to extract guarantees forward.
The speaker gained a welcome endorsement early Wednesday from Trump who instructed Home Republicans in a morning assembly close to the Capitol he was with Johnson all the way in which, in line with an individual acquainted with the non-public remarks and unauthorized to publicly talk about them.
The go to was Trump’s first again to Washington after profitable the 2024 election, and Johnson heaped reward on the president-elect, calling him the “comeback king.”
It’s been a outstanding political journey for Johnson, the unintended speaker who rose as a final, best option to interchange ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy greater than a yr in the past and shortly set course by positioning himself alongside Trump and main Republicans through the elections.
As Johnson tells it, Trump is the “coach” and he’s the “quarterback” as their GOP group prepares to run the performs within the new yr.
Johnson has embraced Trump’s agenda of mass deportations, tax cuts, gutting the federal workforce and a extra muscular U.S. picture overseas. Collectively they’ve been engaged on what the speaker calls an “ambitious” 100-days agenda hoping to keep away from what he known as the errors of Trump’s first time period when Congress was unprepared and wasted “precious time.”
“We will be ready on day one,” Johnson mentioned.
Whereas Johnson expects to steer the Home in unified authorities, with Trump within the White Home and Republicans having seized the Senate majority, the Home is predicted to stay narrowly break up, whilst Home management stays undecided with ultimate races notably in California nonetheless too early to name.
However the issues that include a slim Home majority and plagued Johnson’s first yr as speaker when his personal ranks routinely revolted over his plans are more likely to spill into the brand new yr, with a possible contemporary spherical of chaotic governing.
Johnson wants only a easy majority in Wednesday’s closed-door voting to win the GOP nomination to grow to be speaker. However he’ll want majority assist of the total Home, 218 votes, to truly grasp the gavel on Jan. 3, when the brand new Congress convenes and conducts the election for its speaker. It took McCarthy some 15 rounds of voting in a weeklong election to win the gavel in 2023.
Trump has made Johnson’s issues extra sophisticated by tapping Home Republicans for his administration, lowering the numbers additional. Some Republicans need the Home management elections postponed till management of the Home is totally determined.
Nonetheless, with Trump within the White Home, the speaker might get pleasure from a interval of goodwill from his personal ranks as Republicans are desirous to disrupt the norms of governing and institutionalize Trump’s second-term agenda.
“His challenge is what it’s always been,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-S.C., a member of the Freedom Caucus, mentioned of Johnson.
However he mentioned, “With Trump in charge, it’ll be easier for him to deliver.”
Conservatives have been discussing whether or not to subject their very own candidate as a sign to Johnson as they push their very own priorities, utilizing the identical tactic they did with McCarthy to drive the speaker into concessions, notably on steeper finances cuts.
As Johnson begins the finances course of for subsequent yr, together with utilizing a so-called finances reconciliation course of that makes it simpler in unified authorities to push Trump’s agenda by way of the Home and Senate on easy majority votes, conservatives need him to load up these packages with their very own coverage priorities.
Johnson met with conservatives late Monday night for a non-public dinner forward of votes.
“We’ll see what happens,” mentioned Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, amongst these conservatives weighing their choices.
Democrats, who lent Johnson a hand at governing a number of instances in Congress — supplying the votes wanted to maintain the federal authorities funded and switch again an effort by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to bounce him from workplace — are unlikely to assist him within the new yr.
“Voters voted for them,” mentioned Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Let’s see what they do.”
It’s not simply the speaker election Wednesday, however Republicans will even decide their down-ballot management.
Majority Chief Steve Scalise, additionally of Louisiana, and GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, are anticipated to sail to their reelections in management.
The No. 4 place, the Home GOP convention chair, is essentially the most contested with Trump’s determination to faucet Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York as his ambassador to the United Nations. Her departure opens up the submit that’s being contested by a number of GOP lawmakers.