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Mike Johnson Re-Elected as Speaker, Pledges to Advance America First Agenda

  • Michael Foust Crosswalk Headlines Contributor
  • Updated Jan 03, 2025
Mike Johnson Re-Elected as Speaker, Pledges to Advance America First Agenda

U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson was re-elected as Speaker of the House Friday by a vote of 218-215 on the strength of an endorsement by President-elect Trump, some 15 months after he ascended to the role during a contentious Republican dispute. Johnson won on the first ballot after two initial opponents -- Reps. Keith Self (Texas) and Ralph Norman (S.C.) -- switched to Johnson and pushed him over the top. He will lead the most closely divided House in nearly a century, with 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats as of Friday. The last time the minority party had at least 215 seats was in the 1930s when the GOP held a 218-216 edge.

Johnson will have little room for error in implementing the Trump agenda, as demonstrated Friday.

“It is the great honor of my life to serve this body with all of you,” Johnson told the House in his first speech after the election.

“This is a momentous time in the history of our nation, and as members of the 119th Congress, we are stewards of the great American Revolution that began almost exactly 250 years ago,” he said.

Johnson first claimed the Speaker’s gavel in 2023 with unanimous backing from the GOP caucus, ending a weeks-long deadlock following the House’s removal of former Speaker Kevin McCarthy. He was the fourth Republican during that period to secure majority support within the caucus but the first to garner a majority vote on the House floor.

Earlier Friday, Johnson said Republicans “have a real opportunity in the next two years to make meaningful spending reforms to eliminate trillions in waste, fraud, and abuse, and end the weaponization of government.”

“Along with advancing President Trump’s America First agenda, I will lead the House Republicans to reduce the size and scope of the federal government, hold the bureaucracy accountable, and move the United States to a more sustainable fiscal trajectory,” he said on social media.

Trump publicly backed Johnson prior to the vote.

“Good luck today for Speaker Mike Johnson, a fine man of great ability, who is very close to having 100% support,” Trump wrote on Truth Social. “A win for Mike today will be a big win for the Republican Party.”

Johnson was elected to Congress in 2016 to represent Louisiana’s Fourth District and is in his fourth term in office. He is the shortest-tenured representative to be elected speaker in more than 140 years. Johnson, a Christian, is a member of Cypress Baptist Church in Benton, La.

From 2004 to 2012, Johnson served as a trustee for the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission, the denomination’s public policy arm. 

Prior to serving in the U.S. House and the Louisiana House, Johnson was an attorney and was allied with Alliance Defending Freedom (then the Alliance Defense Fund), a legal organization that supports “religious freedom, free speech, the sanctity of life, marriage and family, and parental rights,” according to its website.

Photo Credit: ©Getty Images/Chip Somodevilla / Staff

Michael Foust has covered the intersection of faith and news for 20 years. His stories have appeared in Baptist Press, Christianity Today, The Christian Post, the Leaf-Chronicle, the Toronto Star and the Knoxville News-Sentinel. 

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