Mike Johnson re-elected leader of the US Parliament after drama

After a shaky game, Republican Mike Johnson was ultimately re-elected as Chairman of the US House of Representatives. The 52-year-old was confirmed in the powerful office in the first round of voting, as was officially announced after the vote in the parliamentary chamber. The result came only after a dramatic turnaround.

Two Republican MPs had previously voted against Johnson in the roll-call vote – which made it look as if the group’s frontman would suffer a defeat. However, the vote was not initially formally ended and a result was not initially officially announced. Instead, there were discussions on the edge of the plenary hall with the dissenters within the party, who then changed their vote at the last minute.

Johnson was thus spared public humiliation. The loyalist of President-elect Donald Trump remains number three in the state ranking after the US President and his vice president.

Johnson had already had to worry about his re-election because of the narrow Republican majority and tensions within his group. The Republican faction in the House of Representatives is fragmented and regularly engages in fierce power struggles. Johnson was promoted to the most powerful post in the US Parliament in October 2023 after radical Republicans drove his predecessor Kevin McCarthy out of office.

McCarthy, on the other hand, was only able to stay in office for less than a year and, when he started in January 2023, needed a full 15 rounds of voting to move up to the post. The background is that Republican MPs from the right wing of the group regularly shoot across the board and refuse to follow the leadership.

Johnson also had difficulty rallying the parliamentary group behind him. He hoped for support from Trump, who has immense influence on his party. Before the vote, Trump praised Johnson as a “good, hard-working, religious man” and expressed his “complete and total” support for him.

The lawyer and former radio presenter from the state of Louisiana has been a member of the House of Representatives since 2017. The father of four is an evangelical Christian. Before his rise to chairmanship, Johnson was part of the extended Republican caucus leadership, but until then he was largely unknown on the national stage. Only since taking over his top post did Johnson make a name for himself and had to gain experience in holding a torn faction together at record speed.

In terms of content, he is a hardliner, but his style is more moderate than others. Johnson belongs to the religious right of his group, is an opponent of abortion and rejects same-sex marriage. He is one of Trump’s loyal supporters. At the time, Johnson refused to recognize Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election and supported Trump’s legal efforts to subsequently reverse the election result. Johnson was also on the defense team at Trump’s impeachment trial.

The election of the chairman was the first item on the agenda in the inaugural session of the newly constituted House of Representatives. Parallel to the US presidential election at the beginning of November, all seats in the Congressional Chamber were filled, and around a third of the seats in the Senate were up for election. The two chambers now met in a new constellation for the first time. In the Senate, incumbent US Vice President Kamala Harris swore in the newly elected members of the chamber in her role as Senate President.

The Republicans defended their majority in the House of Representatives in the election and also secured the majority in the Senate. This gives Trump a lot of political leeway in parliament. He will be sworn in as president on January 20th.