House Republicans Finally Have a New Speaker. The Upside Is Clear. But There Are Many Downsides.

After four failed candidates and many more failed votes than that, House Republicans have finally found a man who could win a majority of votes in their own conference and a majority of House reps outright: Louisiana’s Mike Johnson. Who, you may wonder, is this man who unified the fractious Republican conference, who had the X-factor lacked by Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer and Patrick McHenry, all? Johnson won not just 217 votes; he got 220.

Even House Democrats have quietly asked themselves that question. Who is this guy? Johnson, evidently, has all the conservative bona fides to win the entire House Freedom Caucus outright, despite not being a member—he didn’t lose a single vote from the far-right flank—along with every so-called Republican moderate. Somehow, after weeks of divisions, Johnson did not lose a single GOP vote.

Johnson’s triumph is more a reflection of the power of attrition than of his unique charms. The Louisiana House rep is a vanguard election denier—not exactly the spear tip of the attempt to overturn the 2020 election results, but definitely part of the pointy end. (You will likely see him referred to, not incorrectly, as an “architect” of the coup attempt.) He is also an entrenched opponent of gay marriage and an abortion ban enthusiast. He’s got an A-plus rating from the anti-abortion group Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which Democrats will be sure to declaim loudly from here on out. He’s not even all the way on board with legal, no-fault divorce.

Those archconservative positions may be what got him the job, combined with the fact that his relative anonymity carried less baggage for the mods, but the 22 days since Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy have been so embarrassing for Republicans that all that seemed to be left was Johnson or a power-sharing agreement with Democrats, and they chose door one.

What does it do for Republicans to be helmed by a backbencher whom colleagues on the other side of the aisle barely recognize? The new speaker has three weeks to avert a government shutdown, the very achievement that cost McCarthy his job. In fact, none of those issues that led to McCarthy’s ouster seem to be reconciled. But at least Republicans can, for one day, claim to have their house in order.

The downsides are manifold, and obvious. All swing-district Republicans have now had to throw in their lot with an unreconstructed election denier who extols the most aggressively unpopular positions on social issues. Messaging around that in New York and California will take Olympic gymnastics–level agility, and it still might not work. Democrats, once they finish reading up on him, will be fairly happy with the outcome from an electoral standpoint, though all things equal, they’d probably prefer if Johnson were a Freedom Caucus member, rather than just a doting Jim Jordan understudy.

Worse still, McCarthy, for all his foibles, was an inexhaustible fundraiser. Johnson has only raised half a million dollars in this entire cycle. Louisiana is not exactly a money machine, and his connections there hardly look like the beginnings of a durable and winning elections apparatus. Fellow Louisianan Steve Scalise, who couldn’t get the job, has raised more than 10 times that.

Probably McCarthy will continue to work on Johnson’s behalf in the background; the outcome salvages some shred of dignity for the deposed speaker, who at least didn’t have to vote for one of his own mutineers. As deputy whip, he was sort of part of McCarthy’s brain trust, though vote-counting was never a strength of this outfit.

Johnson is the first House Republican speaker to win every Republican vote since 2011, when John Boehner got the gavel.

But his candidacy is hardly a second coming, and the Republican unity front will last no more than three weeks before it’s truly stress tested. Johnson has only been in Congress since 2017, and has never held a consequential committee chairmanship or anything akin to a leadership position. Will his combination of no leadership experience, a soft-spoken manner, and hardcore evangelical beliefs hold this thing together? Let’s just say: McCarthy’s speakership had the shortest tenure in 140 years, and some records are made to be broken.