There was no time for cake, no celebratory toast when one of the most powerful men in America hit what would have been an inconceivable milestone back in 2023. Mike Johnson, the Republican Party’s once-unassuming consolation prize, hit his three-year anniversary as speaker of the House on Sunday while he was crisscrossing the country to save the majority that no one expected him to be leading this long — or this well. Now, with just a handful of days until the nation decides which party they trust to hold that gavel, Washington’s rumor mill is churning with speculation about what comes next for the likeable Louisiana dad. But frankly, there should be no speculation. Regardless of the GOP’s fate next week, there’s only one man Republicans should entertain as leader: the current one.
It’s hard to believe three years have gone by since the bespectacled attorney — “Who?” people would ask when they heard — assumed the most challenging job in Congress. To Johnson and his family, it probably feels like decades of chaos, upheaval, and general sleeplessness. The few gray hairs he had in his maiden speech have spread, a byproduct of the incredible stress he’s experienced trying to hold his fragile caucus together through some of the fiercest fights in the modern age. And yet, against all odds, he’s managed it — a feat that turned him from “The Accidental Speaker” into a force for unlikely compromise.
Starting out, the Johnsons would tell you that they had no idea the whirlwind they were in for. Thinking back to October 25, that incredible time when he got the gavel, Mike remembers Rep. Patrick McHenry (R-N.C.) turning to him and saying, “When I hand you this, your life’s never gonna be the same,” he told The Atlantic’s Elaina Plott Calabro. “And I was like, ‘Ha, ha, ha.’” He paused, looking down at his shoes. “I had no idea,” he admitted. “I had no idea.”
Now, deep into his time as captain of a very tumultuous ship — one that’s narrowly missed a lot of icebergs — Mike Johnson, the idealistic attorney who began his congressional career with the goal of greater civility, has been everything the Republican Party didn’t know they needed. “I’ve always been a bridge builder,” he explained in his first few months on the job. “Probably the first box that had to be checked was that you didn’t have any enemies in the room. And I didn’t have any enemies in the room.”
Thirty-six months later, that is no longer true. But neither is the idea that the man who never sought the spotlight isn’t a natural in it. Even the cynical and adversarial media couldn’t believe the young attorney’s success. “What if Mike Johnson is actually good at this?” they started to wonder. After the first few times of underestimating him, they seemed to learn — along with the rest of the nation — that betting against this speaker was foolish, no matter what the odds. Despite his wafer-thin margin and gang of malcontents, the Louisianan has pulled more rabbits out of hats than David Copperfield. His majority, which has wavered anywhere between four members and a single one, racked up the kind of wins that a speaker with 20 times his cushion couldn’t fathom.
Perhaps the greatest compliment — from a man who has walked in his shoes (albeit with a much larger buffer) — is Newt Gingrich’s, who could only shake his head and say that Mike was doing an excellent job in what he considered “the most challenging speakership since the Civil War.”
Some will complain that his chamber hasn’t done enough; others, closer to the process, are amazed at what he has accomplished — and with so little. “So many times everybody had written [him] off, there was no way he was going to be able to pull off a particular vote,” Rep. Mark Harris (R-N.C.) told the Los Angeles Times. “Yet he always seems to pull out the win in the end.”
Johnson has compared the job to being a triage nurse on the battlefield. “They wheel a bloody body in and yell, ‘Stop the bleeding!’ And I will, and then turn around and there’s another bloody body.” Through it all, he’s maintained what lesser men might not have: a sense of humor, an atmosphere of composure, humility, and a quiet determination to prove his detractors wrong.
When his job required him to become the GOP’s primary fundraiser, something he told people the Founding Fathers never intended, the speaker ultimately accepted it, went out, and shattered every record. Raising hundreds of millions of dollars for his party, he’s put Republicans in the best position to overcome the stiff headwinds they face. It is, like so many things he’s done during his tenure, historic. “This puts Speaker Johnson on pace for the largest cycle transfer ever to the NRCC by a Republican Speaker or Leader,” Matthew Foldi posted, amazed.
The personal cost is something we’ll never know. The campaign season has kept the dad of four on the road for weeks on end, visiting a dizzying 40-plus districts in 22 states this month alone. So when The Hill’s sources suggest that Johnson might bear the blame if the GOP loses the House, one has to wonder: what else could the man have done?
Unlike his counterpart in the Senate, Mike can also claim something quite rare in Washington’s political circles: the trust of Donald Trump. “Mike Johnson is a true friend, fighter, and WINNER,” the president posted on social media, “and he has my Complete and Total endorsement for Re-Election.” Despite moments of disagreement or the occasional butting of heads over strategy, the president has never publicly wavered in his confidence in Mike as the House’s leader. Their surprisingly close partnership has allowed Johnson to speak truthfully to Trump in ways that others haven’t.
“I think he trusts what I tell him,” the speaker explained recently. “He knows that I have the country’s best interest at heart, and I don’t always tell him what I want to hear — I tell him what he needs to hear. And I think it’s important. Leaders need to hear all sides of an issue … and I know that he appreciates and respects that. … I very much value that relationship. … I put a lot of time in that.”
Trump’s effusive praise shows that it’s paid off. Mike Johnson is “an example of the American Dream,” the president’s team posted recently. “As Speaker, he’s continued to defy the odds with a slim House majority and pass America First bills. After Republicans win in November, they should re-elect Mike as Speaker quickly!”
And while the Louisianan might have more critics now than he did three years ago, no one can deny that Johnson acts in good faith and with integrity. “In a time when political expediency too often takes precedence over principle, Speaker Mike Johnson has remained steadfast in his commitment to faith, family, and freedom,” Family Research Council President Tony Perkins underscores. “Through extraordinary political challenges, Mike has demonstrated the conviction, patience, and perseverance necessary to keep House Republicans united around shared principles and priorities. I am grateful for his friendship, his principled leadership, and his understanding that public service is ultimately about serving God and our fellow citizens.”
His optimism, which has been a hallmark of the midterm season even when others have written off the GOP, helps fuel him. So does coffee. “[I’m] cutting back on the Celsius,” he joked. But unfortunately, the backbreaking schedule is a part of life for now. The speaker prays, he says, “for God’s will.” “And I believe God’s will is for us — and not the communists — to be in charge of America,” Johnson insisted. “And it does say in the New Testament, you run the race to win,” he said, citing 1 Corinthians 9:24. “This is a biblical admonition. So we will.”
Asked what he’ll do if next Tuesday goes badly, he told Fox News’s Aishah Hasnie, “Heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don’t know what my next chapter of life is. If God moves on our hearts and says we should, you know, go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I’ll do that with equal fervor.”
For the sake of our country and the Republicans Party, let’s hope the landscaping can wait.
