House Speaker Mike Johnson will step aside from Republican leadership in the next Congress, declining to run for House minority leader after Democrats won control of the chamber in Tuesday’s midterm elections, the Associated Press reported Wednesday, citing two people familiar with his decision.
Johnson is not leaving Congress. According to the AP, he is expected to keep his Louisiana seat as a rank-and-file member when the new Congress convenes in January. The speaker’s gavel is expected to pass to Democrats, who are preparing to nominate Hakeem Jeffries of New York for the job. That vote is among the first of the new Congress, on Jan. 3, 2027.
The decision is a reversal. In October, Johnson told CBS News he intended to remain the party’s leader if Republicans lost the House.
His exit opens what the AP describes as a fierce internal fight over who leads House Republicans in the minority. Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana is running for the post, according to a person familiar with his plans. The AP expects the contest to become a familiar showdown between Scalise and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, with Republicans choosing their new leader when members-elect gather in Washington next week.
The two men have competed before. Both sought the speaker’s gavel in 2023 after Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy, and neither could win majority support. Johnson, then a lower-ranking member of leadership, emerged as the consensus choice.
The AP notes that Scalise has long drawn support from the conference’s traditional conservative wing, including business and energy-sector lawmakers, while Jordan has long been favored by the hard right, including members of the Freedom Caucus.
Johnson spent the campaign predicting that Republicans would defy the historical pattern in which voters punish the president’s party at midterms. That forecast did not hold.
As speaker, Johnson worked closely with President Donald Trump. He led House passage of the Republican package of tax breaks and social services cuts that Trump signed into law, and he kept politically difficult votes off the floor, including a recent effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, by sending lawmakers home.
His departure from leadership closes a three-year speakership marked by one of the slimmest House majorities in modern times, and leaves Republicans to pick a new direction as they move into the minority.
