Speaker Mike Johnson Steps Aside After Midterm Wipeout as Scalise and Jordan Race to Lead House Republicans

House Speaker Mike Johnson will step aside from Republican leadership after his party’s sweeping defeat in the midterm elections, telling staff on Wednesday morning that he will not seek the minority-leader post in the next Congress, according to the Associated Press and other outlets.

The decision, reported by the Associated Press, Reuters and USA Today on Wednesday, ends Johnson’s three-year run at the top of the House and opens a contest for the leadership of a Republican conference that has just lost control of both chambers of Congress. Johnson, a Louisiana Republican who rose from relative obscurity to the speakership in October 2023, told his staff of his decision in a morning call, according to two people familiar with the announcement who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Johnson handily won re-election to his own seat in his Shreveport-area district on Tuesday, according to USA Today, but his party lost across the country on an election night that will put Democrats in the majority in the House and the Senate when the next Congress convenes in January. He is expected to remain in the House as a rank-and-file member, the Associated Press reported, rather than leaving Congress altogether.

The move came less than a day after voters delivered one of the sharpest midterm rebukes of a sitting president’s party in a generation. Democrats passed the 218 seats needed for a House majority in the early hours of Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, and flipped at least seven Republican-held Senate seats, giving the party unified control of Congress for the first time since 2010.

Within hours of Johnson’s announcement, the race to replace him was already under way. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio announced his candidacy in a letter to colleagues on Wednesday morning, and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana, Johnson’s deputy, launched his own bid the same day, according to Reuters and other reports. House Republicans are expected to choose their new leader in party elections on 10 November.

The Morning After

Johnson broke the news to his staff on a Wednesday morning call, according to a person familiar with his plans cited by Reuters, and the news spread quickly through Washington. By late morning, the Associated Press had confirmed the decision with two people familiar with it, and USA Today reported that Johnson had told staff he would not run for minority leader after Republicans lost control of Congress.

The decision marked a sharp reversal from the position Johnson had taken only months earlier. In an interview with USA Today on 29 June, he said he intended to keep “steady hands at the wheel” of Republican leadership after the midterm election, whatever the result. “I intend to win the election and maintain the speakership. We have a lot more to do, and the last two years of the Trump administration will be just as epic as the first two. I intend to keep steady hands at the wheel,” he said at the time.

Before the election, Johnson had also signalled that he expected to remain the top House Republican even if the party lost its majority. According to Newsmax, he told CBS News in October that, in the “unlikely scenario” of a Democratic victory, he expected colleagues to ask him to continue leading the conference. President Donald Trump endorsed Johnson’s re-election on Monday, the day before the vote.

Tuesday’s results changed the calculation. Johnson’s sunny assertions that Republicans would defy history in the midterms, as voters traditionally punish the president’s party in power, failed to hold, the Associated Press reported. Instead, Republicans were trounced as Democrats swept to the House majority, leaving Johnson without a path to power.

President Trump, speaking to reporters later on Wednesday, said he would not involve himself in the contest to replace Johnson. “We’ll stay out of it,” he said, according to USA Today. “The speaker was fantastic, the people under him were fantastic, all good people.” Trump said he did not ask Johnson to step down.

A person familiar with the situation told USA Today that Johnson did not want to get in the way of Scalise’s ambitions. Scalise, the current majority leader and a fellow Louisiana Republican, previously ran for speaker in 2023 but dropped out after he was unable to consolidate Republican support. Johnson went on to become speaker instead.

Johnson himself struck a defiant note in public remarks reported by the Washington Examiner. “Republicans will not be deterred by the outcome of one election,” he said. “In fact, you know what we do? We double down. We double down. All right? We will continue pressing forward with our agenda of common sense and our vision to make America great again. And come 2028, we will take back the House, and we will finish this job.”

Johnson also joked before the midterm election that he could return to his hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn-mowing business if Republicans were defeated, USA Today reported. He later said the remark was “tongue in cheek”. According to a second person familiar with his thinking cited by USA Today, Johnson is not expected to quit Congress, unlike some previous speakers who resigned their seats after stepping down.

A Race Already Under Way

The contest to succeed Johnson pits two men who have already fought for the top job once before, and lost to each other’s allies in the process. Both Scalise and Jordan reached for the speaker’s gavel after Republican hardliners ousted Kevin McCarthy in 2023, but neither could win majority support from their colleagues, splitting the votes and clearing the way for Johnson to emerge as the consensus candidate.

Jordan moved first on Wednesday. In a letter to colleagues, the Ohio Republican, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, announced his bid for the minority-leader post and framed the day after the elections as “staggering”, according to reports of the letter. He emphasised law and order, low taxes and traditional values as his priorities. “To restore our majority, we must restore voters’ faith in our ability to deliver on these principles,” Jordan wrote, according to Reuters.

Jordan also told colleagues he was “battle-tested on the oversight front” and knew “the Democrats’ playbook”, according to a report of the letter carried by Fox News and cited in other coverage. That pitch is aimed squarely at a party bracing for two years of Democratic investigations, subpoenas and hearings from the majority side of the House.

Scalise launched his own bid the same day, according to Semafor, as reported in other coverage. In a letter to colleagues, the Louisiana Republican proposed creating task forces to speak to people in “Real America” and use the input to craft legislation on top issues, including Social Security and Medicare. “We have big tasks ahead, and tested leadership is needed now more than ever. I am ready to lead this conference,” Scalise wrote, according to Reuters.

House Republicans will pick their leader in a secret ballot on 10 November, according to Axios, as reported in other coverage, with candidates facing a Friday deadline to declare. The winner will lead a diminished conference into opposition, confronting a Democratic majority and a two-year fight to defend President Trump’s agenda from a House built to investigate and obstruct it.

The Associated Press noted that the contest sets up a potential repeat of the leadership battles that have played out in recent years between the House Republican Party’s conservative and far-right flanks. Scalise, the majority leader, has long courted backing from the party’s conservative wing, particularly business and energy sector lawmakers. Jordan, the brawling former wrestler who has led the Judiciary Committee, has long been preferred by the hard right, including some members of the Freedom Caucus.

Other leadership posts are also in play. Representative August Pfluger of Texas is challenging Tom Emmer for the position of Republican whip, the conference’s number-two post in the next Congress, according to reports. The full leadership team will be settled when members-elect gather in Washington next week.

From Accidental Speaker to Lame Duck

Johnson’s rise and fall have both been remarkably swift. He first won the speaker’s gavel in October 2023 after his colleagues ousted the previous Republican speaker, Kevin McCarthy of California, in a first-of-its-kind removal in House history, according to the Associated Press. A lower-level member of House leadership at the time, Johnson in many ways fell into the job after Republican colleagues could not agree on a next-in-line successor to McCarthy.

He had distinguished himself before the 6 January 2021 attack on the Capitol by organising support for Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election, which Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden, the Associated Press reported. Once in office, Johnson quickly pulled closer to Trump, so close that he candidly recounts their almost daily phone calls and chats, often offering his impressions in the president’s voice.

Johnson led the House through a tumultuous era with one of the slimmest majorities in modern times, the Associated Press said. Reuters put the margin at 218-214, a majority so narrow that a handful of absences or defections could sink any vote, and Johnson struggled to maintain control of it for three years.

His record in the chair was defined by loyalty to the president. Johnson led passage of the Republican Party’s signature package of tax breaks and social services cuts that Trump signed into law, according to the Associated Press. He protected the president and his administration from embarrassing votes, including a recent effort to impeach Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, by simply sending lawmakers home, the Associated Press reported.

That closeness to Trump was both Johnson’s strength and, in the end, part of his undoing. His fate was tied to a president whose midterm campaign was fought in the shadow of an unpopular war. According to CBS News and the BBC, as cited in other reporting, Trump acknowledged that the war in Iran played a part in the Republican defeat, while Vice President JD Vance blamed the conflict for the midterm losses. Voters, it appeared, had punished the president’s party in the classic midterm pattern, and the speaker who had hitched himself most closely to the president paid the price first.

Johnson’s departure follows a familiar pattern for defeated speakers. After the 2018 blue wave, then-House Speaker Paul Ryan departed Congress. McCarthy similarly left the lower chamber after being jettisoned from the speakership. Former Republican speakers Newt Gingrich and Dennis Hastert also departed Congress after giving up the gavel, according to Newsmax. Johnson, for now, appears determined to break with that precedent by staying on as an ordinary member.

The Wipeout That Ended It

The scale of the Democratic victory helps explain why Johnson concluded so quickly that his leadership was finished. Democrats needed a net gain of just five seats to take the House, having entered the night with 214 seats to the Republicans’ 218, with one independent and two vacancies, according to the Associated Press. They got far more than that.

Democrats secured the 218 seats needed for a majority in the early hours of Wednesday, according to the Associated Press, and projections put their final total above 250 seats. NBC News later put the Democratic total at 231 called seats, projecting about 258 final seats, which would be the party’s biggest House strength since 1990, according to one analysis of the results.

The Senate story was even more dramatic. Republicans entered the night with a 53-47 majority, and Democrats needed a net gain of four seats to take control. In the end, they flipped seven Republican-held seats, in Iowa, Kansas, Maine, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina and Texas, according to the Associated Press, NBC News and CNN. The Associated Press called the Senate for the Democrats late on Tuesday, after Josh Turek’s win in Iowa gave the party the seats it needed for a majority.

The individual results carried their own history. In Texas, Democrat James Talarico defeated Republican Ken Paxton to become the first Democrat to win a Texas Senate race in decades. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed won to become the first Muslim American ever elected to the Senate. In Maine, Troy Jackson defeated Susan Collins, ending her bid for a sixth term. In South Carolina, Annie Andrews defeated the Republican successor to the late Lindsey Graham, becoming the state’s first Democratic senator in almost three decades, according to the BBC.

Democrats also won a majority of the country’s governorships for the first time in 16 years. In Georgia, Keisha Lance Bottoms became the first Black woman elected governor in American history. In Texas, Gina Hinojosa ousted Governor Greg Abbott. Only two Senate races, in Alaska and Mississippi, remained undecided on Wednesday afternoon, according to USA Today, and neither can change control of the chamber.

The powerful speaker’s gavel is now expected to pass to the Democrats, who are preparing to nominate House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York for the job, the Associated Press reported. Jeffries, a 56-year-old from Brooklyn, is expected to become the first Black speaker in the 237-year history of the House on 3 January 2027, when the new Congress is sworn in, according to Reuters. The speaker is second in line to the presidency, behind Vice President Vance.

In the Senate, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer is likely to retain his party leadership after the victories, according to Reuters, while Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to remain as Republican minority leader despite the loss of his majority. Parties in both chambers are expected to choose their leadership teams after Congress returns to Washington next week.

What Happens Next in Washington

Johnson remains speaker until the new Congress convenes on 3 January 2027, and the weeks between now and then will be filled with unfinished business. The outgoing Republican majority must still fund the government, deal with the economic fallout of the midterm result, and manage a lame-duck session in which its authority is visibly draining away.

The new Democratic majority, meanwhile, has made little secret of its plans. Democrats have vowed intense oversight of Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, and some may try to impeach him in the coming days, according to USA Today. Schumer has vowed that Democrats will use their new majority to stop the war in Iran. Trump has congratulated the Democrats on their victory and said he will accept the results, while also threatening vetoes as investigations loom, according to other reporting.

The leadership election on 10 November will be the first test of the Republican Party’s direction. Whoever wins will inherit a battered conference, a Democratic majority, and the task of rebuilding a party that has just suffered what the New York Post called a “generational midterm wipeout”. The choice between Scalise, the institutional conservative, and Jordan, the hard-right brawler, is in effect a choice about how the party wants to fight its way back.

Trump’s decision to stay out of the race is itself significant. The president has rarely hesitated to intervene in Republican leadership contests, and his neutrality leaves the outcome genuinely open. It also signals that the president, who endorsed Johnson’s re-election on Monday, is not prepared to spend political capital on a leadership fight he may not be able to control.

For Johnson, the immediate future is a return to the back benches of a House he once led. He will keep his seat, keep his vote, and, if his public remarks are any guide, keep arguing that the party’s defeat was a detour rather than a verdict. “Come 2028, we will take back the House,” he said. Whether his party agrees, and whether it wants him in the fight when it tries, will become clear over the next two years.

Analysis: Why It Matters

The speakership is now a casualty of the war

Johnson is the first major political casualty of the midterm results, but he is unlikely to be the last, and the reason for his fall matters more than the fall itself. The speaker tied his leadership to the president more completely than any of his recent predecessors, speaking in Trump’s voice, shielding his administration from votes it did not want, and pushing through its signature legislation on a knife-edge majority. When voters punished the president’s party, they also punished the man who had made himself the president’s instrument in the House. That is the risk of total loyalty: it leaves no distance to retreat into when the verdict goes against you.

A leadership race is a fight over the party’s soul

The contest between Scalise and Jordan is not really about personalities, although both men are well known to their colleagues. It is about how the Republican Party understands its defeat. Scalise represents the institutional wing, the fundraisers, the business and energy interests, the lawmakers who believe the party lost because it failed to deliver competently on the issues voters care about, from Social Security to the cost of living. Jordan represents the combative wing, the oversight hawks and the Freedom Caucus allies, who believe the party lost because it was not aggressive enough in fighting the Democrats and defending the president. The winner will set the tone for the opposition, and the loser’s faction will spend two years arguing that the wrong choice was made.

Trump’s neutrality is a message in itself

The most striking detail of Wednesday was not Johnson’s decision but Trump’s reaction to it. A president who has spent a decade bending the Republican Party to his will chose, in public at least, to stand aside. That may be simple prudence: with the Democrats about to control the House, the president has bigger problems than a leadership election he cannot control. But it also suggests a recognition that the party’s rebuilding cannot be imposed from the White House alone. For a president who endorsed Johnson’s re-election on Monday, only to watch him step aside on Wednesday, neutrality may be the only dignified option left.

The Democrats’ majority changes the maths of power

Johnson’s departure is a symptom, not the story. The story is that Democrats will control both chambers of Congress from January, with a House majority large enough to survive defections and a Senate majority that can confirm or block the president’s nominees. The speaker’s gavel passing to Hakeem Jeffries, who would become the first Black speaker in the history of the House, is a symbolic moment of real weight, but the practical weight is greater: subpoena power, control of the legislative calendar, the ability to force votes the president does not want, and the power to stop the war in Iran, as Schumer has promised to try to do. Johnson’s exit is the first visible sign of a transfer of power that will reshape Washington for the next two years.

Staying in Congress is Johnson’s gamble

By remaining in the House as a rank-and-file member, Johnson is betting that his political career is not finished, only interrupted. History is not on his side: Ryan, McCarthy, Gingrich and Hastert all left Congress after giving up the gavel. But Johnson is younger than most of them were, he holds a safe seat, and he retains the president’s goodwill. The risk is that the back benches will be a humbling place for a man who, three years ago, was second in line to the presidency. The opportunity is that, in a party searching for its next generation of leaders, a former speaker with nothing left to lose can say things his successors cannot.

What to Watch Next

1. 10 November leadership election: House Republicans will choose their new leader in a secret ballot, with candidates facing a Friday deadline to declare. Watch whether a third candidate emerges, and whether Trump breaks his neutrality before the vote.
2. The lame-duck session: Johnson remains speaker until 3 January. Watch how he handles government funding and whether the outgoing majority tries to lock in any legislation before the Democrats take over.
3. 3 January 2027: The new Congress convenes and the House elects its speaker. Hakeem Jeffries is expected to take the gavel, becoming the first Black speaker in the chamber’s 237-year history.
4. Democratic oversight: Watch for the first subpoenas and hearings from the new Democratic majority, and whether any Democrat moves to impeach Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth, as some have threatened.
5. The Iran war debate: Schumer has vowed Democrats will use their majority to stop the conflict. Watch whether the new Congress moves to restrict the president’s war powers, and how Trump responds.

Sources

• Associated Press — Speaker Johnson won’t seek re-election as House Republican leader after party’s midterm wipeout
• Reuters — US House Speaker Johnson will not seek minority leadership post
• USA Today — Speaker Mike Johnson won’t seek House leadership role after GOP losses
• Washington Examiner — Mike Johnson won’t run for minority leader after steep GOP midterm losses
• Reuters — How Democrats’ victory will reshuffle party leadership in Congress