WASHINGTON ― House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) will take a step back from Republican leadership next year when Democrats take control of Congress.
Johnson won’t put his hat in the ring when Republicans choose their minority leader for next year, a source confirmed to HuffPost on Wednesday, clearing the way for someone new to become the face of the Republican Party on Capitol Hill.
One possible successor atop the Republican conference is House Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan (Ohio), who announced his bid for leader in a letter to his colleagues on Wednesday, vowing an aggressive approach to the job.
“In these next two years, our job cannot be merely to spotlight how radical this new Democrat party is ― offense, not defense, wins elections,” Jordan said in the letter.
“Republican policies prioritize making Americans’ neighborhoods safer, keeping more money in their pockets, and protecting enduring American values and freedoms,” Jordan said. “To restore our majority, we must restore voters’ faith in our ability to deliver on these principles.”
Jordan is a founding member of the right-wing House Freedom Caucus who ran for speaker in 2023 but was blocked by moderate Republicans.
Johnson’s decision to leave leadership is a recognition Republicans got absolutely rocked in the midterm elections on Tuesday. As of Wednesday morning, Democrats had won at least 228 seats and were on track to control many more with 68 races still not called.
In remarks on Tuesday evening, Johnson blamed political fate for Republicans’ massive losses in the House and Senate.
“We knew that to keep the House and sustain a majority, we would have to defy more than a century of midterm history,” Johnson said after winning his own reelection. “It’s only happened twice in 90 years that a sitting president has picked up or held seats for his party in the first two-year cycle.”
Under Johnson’s leadership, House Republicans were utterly devoted to President Donald Trump, and voters seemed to recognize them as minions of a massively unpopular president who’d failed to deliver on a key campaign promise to reduce consumer prices.
An open letter to House and Senate GOP leaders from Rep. Greg Steube (R-Fla.) on Wednesday shows the potential difficulty Johnson would have had in remaining speaker.
“You have been embarrassingly weak and more afraid of governing conservatively than of disappointing the voters who put us in office,” Steube wrote on social media. “Please do us all a favor and step aside so new leadership can take a truly conservative direction, with the courage to do the things we were elected to do.”