However, discontent is circulating throughout the Republican conference, and any defection from Johnson supporters could result in a lengthy speakership battle and a possible delay in certifying their party leader’s ascent to the White House.

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When the House returns to session on Jan. 3, the breakdown will be 219 Republicans and 215 Democrats when all new members are sworn in. If all 434 members vote, the majority needed to become speaker will be 218.

As all 215 Democrats are likely to vote for Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), Johnson can only afford to lose one Republican vote — and he’s already in danger, after Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) told reporters he would not support Johnson for speaker.

For many members, this speakership fight could feel like deja vu.

Former Speaker and California Republican Rep. Kevin McCarthy won the speaker’s gavel after losing 14 rounds of voting in 2023. McCarthy’s ouster in the fall later that year brought the House to a standstill for three weeks due to Republican infighting over who to select as their leader. The conference finally landed on Johnson, who many regard as the most conservative speaker in U.S. history.

Now, Johnson’s gavel is in peril — and so is the certification of Trump’s win over Vice President Kamala Harris.

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Ironically, as president of the Senate, Harris will preside over the joint session of Congress to oversee Trump’s certification. The House is scheduled to elect a speaker on Jan. 3, who can then administer the oath of office to incumbent and newly-elected members. 

On Jan. 6, the speaker selects two tellers who read out the votes, and the speaker also oversees the House during any debate if there are objections to the Electoral College votes. Given the wide margin Trump won over Harris, not many, if any, objections are expected.

After the riot at the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a revision of the bipartisan Electoral Count Reform Act created new or amended procedures for certification and challenges. Under the law, the vice president cannot accept or reject Electoral College votes, just oversee. The law also makes it more difficult for members of Congress to raise objections to the count, raising the threshold to one-fifth of the membership of each chamber.

Despite the headache that a lack of a speaker would create, some scholars have argued that not having a speaker by certification on Jan. 6 will not “paralyze” the House.

Justin Levitt, a law professor at Loyola Law School who helped revise the Electoral Count Reform Act, said in an interview with the Washington Examiner that nothing in the Constitution requires a speaker to complete the electoral count. 

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If there is no speaker, Levitt predicts the role would fall solely to Harris to administer the count — as the president of the Senate is the only constitutional role mentioned in the 12th Amendment, which deals with the electoral process.

“There’s always been a little bit of ‘don’t look too closely’ magic, a legal sleight of hand, because all the members of the House are sworn in by the speaker. The speaker is sworn in by somebody else…but that person isn’t sworn in until they’re sworn in by the speaker,” Levitt said.

“Because it’s such a formality, everybody kind of just agrees to let it happen, but you’ve got somebody without authority taking an official step to give somebody else authority, and that’s always been a little weird,” the professor added.

The only issue with not having a speaker would be the role of the tellers, who Levitt said are effectively “just town criers.” Though not an expert in specific congressional proceedings, he said, he thinks Harris could likely choose tellers or the chambers could just agree to have the current speaker — Johnson — administer the duties until he or another is officially selected as the 119th Congress’ speaker.

“Literally Harris says, ‘I got an envelope from Alabama here,’ and hands the piece of paper to the teller who says, ‘Yep, Alabama, they voted for Trump,’ and she says, ‘Do I have any objections?’ Nobody says they have any objections, we proceed onto the next thing,” Levitt said.

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“It’s as close to reading the Oscar envelope as you can get,” he added of the tellers’ job. “It’s ceremonial, but it has no actual purpose. The paper says what it says.”

Congress could change the date of the Jan. 6 joint session by passing a law, and there is precedent for doing so in modern history, so the chambers could decide to push the certification back a few days to give the House more time to sort out their internal battles.

As seen with McCarthy and Johnson, however, battles for the speakership can take days.

Some House Republicans argue that Trump has no room for delays, particularly as the president-elect continues to promise a comprehensive first 100 days of his administration.

“We’re going to have a speaker battle coming up, which is a distraction, and it breaks down pretty simple. This is not my first rodeo. I came in, I watched the Boehner fight. I’ve watched the McCarthy fight. I’ve watched the Ryan fight. This is a distraction,” Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT) said on Dec. 26. “So to have a speaker’s battle, all that does, is a distraction and delays getting the America First policy through.”

Johnson appears to be in the best spot possible, at least with incoming GOP members.

One incoming House Republican has no interest in seeing speakership history repeat itself, though they did note that their loyalty is “first and foremost to President Trump.”

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“[Johnson] has an impossible job that was put on him by a group of self-interested attention whores who have no interest in governing,” the Republican lawmaker told the Washington Examiner. “They took out Kevin with no plan whatsoever. We got speaker Johnson and now they’re mad about it. Can’t have it both ways.”

“I pray that speaker Johnson has the votes because we cannot afford to waste time on an exercise of stupidity like we did after Kevin. He will have my vote,” the member added, noting that there hasn’t been any conversations about freshmen being “worked on” the speaker vote.

Another incoming House GOP freshman member told the Washington Examiner that “every Freshman member I have spoken to supports Johnson.”

“Gave us a clean slate to work with and worked hard to keep majority,” the lawmaker said. “Most who are against did NOTHING to help secure majority.”

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Spending fight puts Johnson in a sticky situation

Several Republicans in the final weeks of December told reporters that they were unsure of Johnson’s leadership. Massie is a hard no, while Reps. Andy Harris (R-MD) and Victoria Spartz (R-IN) are undecided on whether they will support Johnson next year.

Just before leaving for December recess, the continuing resolution battle placed Johnson in the hot seat with moderates and hardliners alike, as well as Trump himself. 

The original bipartisan package to keep the government funded fell apart after it upset rank-and-file members with the additional spending items shoved into the must-pass bill. Then, hardline conservatives broke away from a Trump-backed CR that included language to raise the debt ceiling, causing the second package to fail. 

The package that ultimately passed included extending funding to March and providing millions in disaster aid and farm assistance with no debt ceiling language. But for some members, the final package was the final straw.

Jeffries told reporters and outlets that Democrats would not save Johnson or the GOP “from themselves” after the caucus accused Johnson of going back on the original bipartisan spending package.

“There will be no Democrats available to save him, or the extreme MAGA Republicans, from themselves, based on the breaching of a bipartisan agreement that reflected priorities that were good for the American people,” Jeffries said.

In the days after the spending battle, Republicans are reportedly jockeying for Trump’s ear regarding his previous endorsement of Johnson for speaker right after he won the 2024 presidential election. 

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According to Fox News Digital, several of Johnson’s allies are urging Trump to intervene as the speaker’s battle appears be on a messy collision course, telling him that if there is no speaker elected, then the House cannot certify his election win.

Rep. Carlos Gimenez (R-FL) told the Washington Examiner he thinks Johnson should be elected “on the first ballot.”

“While I have heard rumblings of a few of our members about the speaker, a protracted process would serve no one but the opponents of President Trump and his agenda,” Gimenez said. “We have a lot to do in the first 100 days to help President Trump put America on the right path. For the sake of our country, a fight on who the Speaker of the House should be is not one of them.”

On the other side, conservative House Republicans reportedly vocalized concerns about Johnson to Trump before the government spending fiasco, per the Hill. One source close to Trump told the outlet that many members have called on Trump to “dump Johnson.”

A House Republican aide told the Washington Examiner that while Trump’s endorsement may not sway certain members from their votes one way or the other, the real test would come if the president-elect endorses a Johnson challenger.

In this situation, the aide said, it would “empower the president” and create an “unhealthy balance” between Congress and the presidency.

“He’d effectively be holding it over the speaker’s head,” the aide said of Trump and Johnson.