Mike Johnson Wins Reelection As Speaker Of The House: 2 Republicans Reverse Course After Holding Out

U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson (R-La.) has been re-elected as speaker of the house after a close vote Friday that needed meetings with holdouts to change their votes as the new session of Congress began Friday.

What Happened: Johnson faced pressure from several Republican holdouts ahead of Friday's vote due to his handling of a recent government spending bill that nearly saw a government shutdown.

On Friday, the first ballot for speaker saw an unofficial tally of 216 votes for Johnson and 215 votes for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) with three Republicans choosing to not vote or picking someone different.

Before the first ballot closed, several members of Congress held meetings and conducted phone calls to race and get the support Johnson needed to prevent more voting rounds from happening, as reported by the Washington Post.

Reps. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) and Keith Self (R-Texas) changed their votes in support of Johnson to push him to the 218 votes needed out of 434 to secure the majority. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) did not switch his vote, supporting Rep. Tom Emmer for speaker instead.

All 215 Democrats voted for Jeffries on the first ballot.

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Why It's Important: Johnson's win comes after he recently received President-elect Donald Trump's support for the speaker role.

Elon Musk, who previously criticized Johnson's handling of the spending bill, showed support on Jan. 1 for Johnson.

The last-minute changing of votes by two of the three holdouts led to only one round of voting being needed. Further rounds of voting could have seen more Congress members choose to not support Johnson as he faced more than three question marks among members heading into Friday's vote.

A division among Republican members of Congress could have been a bad look for the political party, which now has control of both chambers of Congress and the White House.

When it looked like Johnson wouldn't secure the win, Jeffries took to X comment on the party:

"The GOP Civil War is in full swing. And it's only Day 1," Jeffries tweeted.

A tweet from former Rep. Matt Gaetz saying Johnson would be elected speaker Friday on the first vote received a Community Note before the official results of the first ballot were completed.

Massie commented on the tweet "this one didn't age well" before later replying again that "actually looks like mine didn't age well."

On prediction markets like Polymarket and Kalshi, Johnson's odds for speaker re-election were above 90% prior to the spending bill and near government shutdown items in December where his odds dropped to less than 67% on each platform, as Benzinga previously reported.

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