Photo: Noclip / Wikimedia Commons (public domain).
A decision confirmed in one word
House Speaker Mike Johnson will step down as the top Republican in the House of Representatives after his party's crushing defeat in the 2026 midterm elections, his spokesman confirmed on Wednesday.
Asked by email whether reports that Johnson planned to step aside were correct, the spokesman replied with a single word: "Accurate."
Johnson, a 54-year-old Louisiana Republican, told his staff of the decision on Wednesday morning, a day after Democrats seized control of both chambers of Congress in a sweeping rejection of President Donald Trump's party. The decision means Johnson will not seek the minority leader post when the new Congress convenes in January, clearing the way for a contested race to succeed him as the House Republicans' leader.
Johnson won re-election to his Louisiana seat on Tuesday, and his decision does not mean he is immediately resigning as speaker or leaving Congress. He will remain speaker until the new House is sworn in early next year.
In a letter to House Republicans, Johnson said leadership had demanded "significant sacrifices" from his family and that, after three years as speaker, "the time has come for me to give them more of the attention and presence they so richly deserve," according to Axios, which obtained the letter. In a separate public statement, he vowed that Republicans would "double down" and "come 2028, we will take back the House and we will finish this job."
Scalise and Jordan set up a leadership race
Johnson's exit sets up a contest between two of the most prominent conservatives in the House: Majority Leader Steve Scalise, Johnson's No. 2 and a fellow Louisianan, and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio.
Jordan told Republican colleagues on Wednesday that he will run for the top post, and Scalise announced his own bid in a letter that described the election result as "far worse than any of us expected." House Republicans are expected to vote on their next leader on Tuesday next week.
President Trump praised Johnson's leadership and said he would "stay out of" the race to find a successor.
The announcement reverses the position Johnson had signalled before the election. He had told CBS News that if Republicans lost the House — a scenario he called unlikely — he expected his colleagues would ask him to continue leading the conference even in divided government.
Jeffries poised to take the gavel
On the Democratic side, House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries formally sought his colleagues' support on Wednesday to become the next speaker, a position he is widely expected to secure when the new Congress convenes in January. Jeffries would become the first Black speaker of the House.
Johnson, the highest-ranking Republican in the United States after President Trump and Vice President JD Vance, is second in the line of presidential succession. He had led the House since October 2023, when he emerged as a compromise candidate after weeks of Republican infighting following the ouster of his predecessor, Kevin McCarthy.
The leadership change is the latest aftershock of Tuesday's vote, in which Democrats captured the House and the Senate, flipped five governorships and picked up Senate seats in states including Texas, Kansas and South Carolina. Vice President Vance has blamed the war with Iran — and the higher fuel prices it helped drive — for the scale of the defeat, and Trump himself has acknowledged the war "largely" cost his party the election.
What comes next
With counting still under way in a handful of Senate races and dozens of House contests, Democrats were on course for a larger majority than many had anticipated. The new majorities will give the party significant powers to scrutinise the Trump administration, challenge its policies and block some presidential appointments — and the coming leadership vote will determine who leads the Republican opposition in that new landscape.
Sources: AFP via Gulf News; The Hindu; The Epoch Times; Bloomberg Government.