Two men enter, one man leaves. Or, in this case, 434 enter and one man may keep the Speaker’s gavel, or it may pass to somebody else entirely. And it all happens at high noon, like the shootouts on Main Street in the old west. At 11:00 a.m. the 118th Congress will formally end. Then at noon the 119th Congress convenes to elect a Speaker. A majority — not a plurality — is required for the Speaker to take the gavel and swear the Congress in, en masse. A formal rules package will then be adopted. Sounds simple, right? Not a chance.
As things stand heading into Friday, the House majority will be 219 Republicans, who will sit across from a 215-Democrat minority. That means the magic number for Johnson remains 218, if all 434 members of Congress are in attendance. (Why 434 instead of a full set of 435 representatives? Because Florida’s 1st District will not have a member to be seated, as the individual who won that seat has given up the role for a job at One America News; he is also battling allegations of violating Florida’s statutory rape law.)
This means Johnson can lose two of his fellow Republicans without losing the vote. He has already lost Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), who believes (in a bad way) that Johnson is the second coming of former Speaker Paul Ryan—you know, the guy who helped Trump deliver his signature legislative achievement, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which included broad tax cuts and oil drilling expansions.
Johnson has asked Massie to “stay off of Twitter,” Axios reports, as the festivities begin. Well, I guess that’s something when you’re down to a situation where two votes can screw you and you’ve already lost one. But lookey here, Marge Greene has said she’ll vote for Johnson, also according to Axios, and Trump called Chip Roy. Chip Roy is blatantly anti-debt ceiling increase and has held his ground before. I would love to know if Trump threatened him on the call. Then we’ve got Elon Musk undercutting Trump. Now this is rich.
“We’ve seen Johnson partner with the democrats to send money to Ukraine, authorize spying on Americans, and blow the budget,” Massie wrote on X. That apparently got the attention of Elon Musk, who spends a big chunk of his life scrolling the site he owns. Musk replied to Massie, “You might be right, but let’s see how it goes.”
Musk’s reply subtly undercut his new best friend, President-elect Donald Trump, who posted an endorsement of Johnson earlier in the day. (The speaker happily made sure the press corps was aware after Trump’s post landed on Truth Social.)
With Massie off the reservation, Johnson now faces several colleagues who are wondering about the whethers and whens of their own potential breaks. Rep. Chip Roy (R-Tex.) is thinking about pushing Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) into the running if Johnson’s struggles deepen. Jordan, for his part, still backs Johnson. In addition, there are always wildcards like Reps. Victoria Spartz (R-Ind.) and Nancy Mace (R-S.C.), whose strategic aims are often perfectly inscrutable.
Rep. Tim Burchett (R-Tenn.), one of Republicans who voted to oust McCarthy in 2023, is probably backing Johnson, and for a very specific reason.
“Mike’s been a good friend to me, and there’s nobody more honest that I’ve ever dealt with in Washington,” Burchett said. “I mean, he’s a fine Christian man. He’s not a religious man: He’s a Christian man, and he doesn’t cheat on his wife, and I find that very appealing in Washington, D.C.”
Two years ago it took Kevin McCarthy fifteen rounds to win. That won’t happen tomorrow. Johnson will maybe last two rounds before things start coming unglued and the Congress goes a different direction. Just a few weeks ago, 38 Republicsn voted against raising the debt ceiling.
The only thing that can be said with certainty is that the closeness of the first ballot counts. If Johnson takes it with ease, then the phone calls over the holiday effectively swung the bat for him. If the voting goes more than a couple of rounds, then there’s trouble. Look for an upset. And an upset that goes beyond the weekend may affect the vote certification on Monday, January 6.
If Jim Jordan ends up heading the 119th Congress, then we will see a level of circus never before even imagined in Washington. Don’t count it out. It’s a long shot but not out of the realm of possibility. This is how far we’ve dropped in two years. Might as well plunge all the way down on this rollercoaster from Hell. We’re liable to get there anyway, why not on Day One?
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