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Where does Congressional Republican leadership go from here?
Can Mike Johnson remain atop a party on its heels, or is the GOP rank and file ready for a change?
Republicans facing a likely electoral blowout in today’s midterms are looking ahead to a very different election. It is one that will determine who leads the party through a new term as the likely minority in one, if not both, chambers of Congress. While current Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) has signaled he intends to stay on as party leader, other Republican aspirants are eyeing the midterms as an opportunity to move up the leadership ladder.
What did the commentators say?
There is a “shadow election battle” now “quietly underway” among Republicans to lead “what is expected to be a diminished House Republican Conference,” said Politico. Speaker Johnson’s “recent hints that he intends to remain GOP leader” have “rattled the party’s leadership outlook,” said The Hill. The prospect of Johnson remaining in party leadership has prompted “fresh new questions” about the GOP’s place in the coming Congress, as most House speakers during the modern era have “stepped out of Congress after losing the gavel.”
“Most” Republicans expect Reps. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) and Steve Scalise (R-La.) to “make a play for minority leader,” said Semafor. But both lawmakers have “publicly refused to entertain questions” about a potential leadership fight “on the record,” said The Washington Post. Rep. Tom Emmer (R-Minn.), current GOP caucus whip, has also been “floated as a potential minority leader,” though he said he “plans on running for whip again next Congress.”
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Johnson staying on as party leader is “not out of the realm of the possibility,” as members of his caucus “like him,” said one GOP insider to the Post. “Alas,” said Puck. What was once shaping up to be a “clear-cut race between Scalise and Jordan,” Republican leaders with “opposing styles and vastly different strengths and coalitions,” might now become a “three-way battle.”
What next?
The “size and ideological makeup” of the post-midterms GOP conference will be “key factors” in any leadership race, said Puck. “Heavy losses” that “obliterate moderates representing swing districts” would place the GOP in a “smaller but more conservative minority.”
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Rafi Schwartz has worked as a politics writer at The Week since 2022, where he covers elections, Congress and the White House. He was previously a contributing writer with Mic focusing largely on politics, a senior writer with Splinter News, a staff writer for Fusion's news lab, and the managing editor of Heeb Magazine, a Jewish life and culture publication. Rafi's work has appeared in Rolling Stone, GOOD and The Forward, among others.
