House Speaker Mike Johnson won the House Republican nomination Wednesday to stay on the job, on track to keep the gavel after a morning endorsement from President-elect Donald Trump ahead of a full House vote in the new year. While Johnson has no serious challenger, he faces dissent within his ranks, particularly from hard-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus withholding their votes as leverage to extract promises ahead. Trump told House Republicans, during the president-elect’s first trip back to Washington since the party swept the 2024 election, that he’s with the speaker all the way, according to a person familiar with the remarks but unauthorized to discuss the private meeting near the Capitol. Johnson heaped praise on Trump, calling him the “comeback king.” It’s been a remarkable political journey for Johnson, the accidental speaker who rose as a last, best choice to replace ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy more than a year ago and quickly set a course by positioning himself alongside Trump and leading Republicans during this year’s elections. As Johnson tells it, Trump is the “coach” and he is the “quarterback” as they prepare for a unified Republican government in the new year. Johnson has embraced Trump’s priorities on mass deportations, tax cuts, cutting the federal workforce and a more muscular U.S. image abroad. Together they have been working on what the speaker calls an ambitious 100-days agenda hoping to avoid what he called the mistakes of Trump’s first term when Congress was unprepared and wasted “precious time.” Wednesday’s internal GOP vote was by voice rather than roll call or ballots, with no objections to Johnson, according to the same person in the room. The rest of the top GOP leaders were also reelected. But the outcome belies a more difficult road ahead for the speaker. While Johnson expects to lead the House in unified government, with Trump in the White House and Republicans having seized the Senate majority, the House is expected to remain narrowly split, even as House control remains undecided with final races particularly in California still too early to call. But the problems that come with a slim House majority and plagued Johnson’s first year as speaker when his own ranks routinely revolted over his plans are likely to spill into the new year, with a potential fresh round of chaotic governing. Johnson needs just a simple majority in Wednesday’s closed-door voting to win the GOP nomination to become speaker. But he will need majority support of the full House, 218 votes, to actually take hold of the gavel on Jan. 3, when the new Congress convenes and conducts the election for its speaker. It took McCarthy some 15 rounds of voting in a weeklong election to win the gavel in 2023. Trump has made Johnson’s problems more complicated by tapping House Republicans for his administration, reducing the numbers further. Just before voting, Trump tapped Rep. Matt Gaetz, R-Fla., as his nominee for attorney general, sending shockwaves through the room over the far-right pick. “Everybody was saying, Oh my God,” said Rep. Mike Simpson, R-Idaho. Still, with Trump in the White House, the speaker may enjoy a period of goodwill from his own ranks as Republicans are eager to disrupt the norms of governing and institutionalize Trump’s second-term agenda. “His challenge is what it’s […]