By Mariana Alfaro, Marianna Sotomayor · The Washington Post (c) 2025
As the House heads into its first session of the new Congress on Friday, Speaker Mike Johnson – the Louisiana Republican who has led the chamber since October 2023 – is not yet assured to be reelected to the post.
Johnson has spent recent weeks working to secure the support of a handful of House Republicans who have expressed disappointment over his leadership in passing policies they believe were not conservative enough. Their disdain culminated last month during negotiations on a stopgap measure to fund the government that drew ire from many House Republicans, President-elect Trump, and Elon Musk.
The Republicans’ skepticism of Johnson’s leadership has raised the prospect of a contentious and possibly drawn-out speaker fight that could once again spark rifts in the House GOP conference.
The House is scheduled to convene for the start of the 119th Congress at 12 p.m. Eastern. The vote is expected to start soon after.
Here’s what you need to know about Friday’s vote:
How many votes does Johnson need to be elected speaker?
Johnson needs the support of 218 lawmakers to be reelected if all House lawmakers are present to cast a vote for a speaker candidate by name. That support must come from his Republican conference because Democrats are expected to unanimously back Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-New York) for the role.
Republicans have just a 219-seat majority after the resignation of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Florida) late last year. This means Johnson can lose support from only one Republican to win the speakership. Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Kentucky) has already pledged to vote against him, so Johnson must win over all remaining Republicans.
However, there is a roundabout way to get around the need for 218 votes. A small number of Republicans could vote “present,” which would lower the majority vote threshold. That is how Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-California) was elected speaker two years ago.
It’s unclear whether Johnson has tried to convince holdouts to vote “present” rather than against his nomination.
What is Johnson doing to woo uncommitted Republicans?
Trump’s endorsement on Monday helped sway several wavering Republicans to fall in line. But many undecideds in the House Freedom Caucus are hoping Johnson has a plan to tackle myriad policy bills that make up Trump’s agenda and also reduce federal spending.
Johnson worked the phones over the holiday break from Louisiana to get an understanding of why roughly a half dozen Republicans remained undecided about whether to support his bid. He spent Thursday in the Capitol and met for more than two hours with several holdouts. Negotiations continued through the evening as several lawmakers sought firm commitments from Johnson to pass conservative bills without relying on Democrats.
What happens if Johnson can’t get enough votes to be speaker?
If Johnson can’t get the necessary votes to become speaker on the first ballot, the House immediately starts voting again. The House will vote on numerous ballots until a speaker is elected or Johnson decides to delay the vote to Saturday so he can continue negotiating with the holdouts through Friday evening. Then the voting process begins again.
What happens if a speaker isn’t elected by Jan. 6?
If there’s no elected speaker, House members cannot be sworn into office, and the chamber cannot proceed with its business. This means that, if there’s no one in the seat by Jan. 6, the chamber will not be able to certify the results of the 2024 election for Donald Trump – a largely ceremonial but necessary step.
However, the House could adopt a resolution naming a temporary speaker or caretaker of the House that would serve the chamber for limited purposes such as certifying the results of the election, Daniel Schuman, executive director of the American Governance Institute, noted.
“Republicans are not going to want to do anything that could possibly interfere with the counting of electoral votes for Trump,” he said. “And the role of the speaker in that process is pretty limited, so they could have the acting clerk play that role [or] they could go and have Mike Johnson, they could just extend him for a week.”
Could a delay in electing a speaker affect the Jimmy Carter funeral?
In short: not really.
Former president Jimmy Carter’s remains are expected to lie in state at the Capitol Rotunda from Jan. 7 to the morning of Jan. 9, when his state funeral will be held. The House has to pass a resolution to allow the ceremony to occur. While that vote is expected to be widely bipartisan, if there is no speaker, the House cannot carry out the process.
But Thomas Wickham, a former House parliamentarian, told The Washington Post that while a House vote is traditionally required to hold a lying-in-state, there are other ways in which the ceremony could be approved.
“When there’s been circumstances where there’s either recess or something like that, the two houses have acted either by letter or some sort of action short of the standard concurrent resolution,” Wickham said.
What might a delay in choosing a speaker mean for Trump’s agenda?
If there’s no speaker by Jan. 6, the House not only risks delaying the certification of the 2024 election – which is scheduled to happen on that day – but also delaying the implementation of Trump’s agenda. The incoming administration wants the GOP-led Congress to quickly pass policies addressing border security and energy-related reforms before working on reauthorizing Trump’s 2017 tax law.
More pressing for the House, however, is the issue of the debt ceiling – Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned last week that the United States has less than three weeks to raise its debt limit before it will need to take “extraordinary measures” to sustain federal operations.
Failing to lift the debt limit could have catastrophic consequences for the global economy, as the U.S. government has never before defaulted on its debt obligations.
Allies of Johnson in the House are warning their Republican colleagues that they’re better off not delaying the selection of a speaker, arguing that it will only delay the implementation of Republican priorities. Hard-liners, however, want Johnson to outline a plan for spending cuts in exchange for lifting the debt ceiling.
Has the speaker always been chosen this way?
Schuman of the American Governance Institute noted that the House could adopt rules that would allow a speaker to be elected by less than a majority vote, meaning, for example, that a speaker could be elected through a plurality.
This has happened twice in history – in 1849, when the House went 19 days in session without being able to elect a speaker, and in 1856, when the chamber went over 125 ballots without any candidate receiving a majority of votes cast. Both of those plurality elections were later ratified by a majority vote.
“The House of Representatives has the ability to set their own rules within the constraints of the Constitution,” Schuman said.
Does the speaker need to be a member of the House?
No. Some House Republicans ended the year joking that maybe Musk should be elected speaker given his closeness to Trump.