Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Friday defied his most conservative critics to retain his gavel in the next Congress, overcoming threats from a group of far-right lawmakers leery of his leadership record and commitment to spending cuts.

The victory puts Johnson in the driver’s seat of the lower chamber just as President-elect Trump is poised to return to the White House for a second term, lending Republicans control of all levers of power in Washington for at least the next two years.

It didn’t come easy.

Johnson was initially on a path to lose the first round when three Republicans voted on Friday to elevate other figures to the Speakership post — two more detractors than Johnson could afford given the Republicans’ hairline majority. The math changed only when two of those Republicans flipped their votes — a shift that came with a nudge from Trump, who called in amid the long vote to lobby for Johnson.

The messy process grants Johnson the leadership seat he was after, but also forecasts challenges ahead as the Speaker seeks to unify the Republicans’ restive conference behind Trump’s ambitious legislative agenda beginning in the early months of 2025.

Here are five takeaways from Friday’s Speaker vote.

Johnson pulls off a stunner

Heading into Friday’s vote, Johnson faced stiff headwinds. Not only was Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) promising to oppose his Speakership bid, but roughly a dozen other conservative Republicans were also withholding their support, with most citing concerns over Johnson’s previous willingness to join forces with Democrats on must-pass legislation like funding the government.

The stand-off brought countless comparisons to the marathon Speaker vote two years ago, when it required 15 votes over four days before then-Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) secured the gavel.

Many observers were bracing for a similar slog this week. And Johnson’s critics seemed poised to block his ascension — at least during the first vote, when two conservatives joined Massie in voting for another figure to assume the post while six others declined to vote at all, leaving observers to guess their ultimate intentions.

The three GOP defectors, by themselves, were enough to sink Johnson’s leadership aspirations. But rather than gavel the first vote closed, Johnson and his allies launched a furious lobbying campaign on the House floor targeting the two holdouts they deemed to be flippable:........

© The Hill