House Republicans vote on a leader November 10 after losing the majority; Johnson says he wants to stay

House Republicans lost their majority on Tuesday night, and by Wednesday morning the question inside the conference had shifted from how to who. Speaker Mike Johnson$ said last month that he intends to keep leading House Republicans even in the minority. His colleagues will decide whether he does so on November 10, when the conference holds leadership elections one week after Election Day. Candidates must declare by noon on Friday, November 6, The Hill reported, citing two Republican staffers. That gives Johnson, Majority Leader Steve Scalise$, Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan$ and anyone else two days to decide whether to run, and a week to count votes.

This story sets out what is known about the schedule, what each of the people involved has said, how past speakers handled a lost majority, and what President Donald Trump has and has not said. It separates those facts from the online reaction, which we could sample only in a limited way during this run.

What happened on Tuesday

CBS News projected Democratic control of the House at 10:15 p.m. Eastern on Tuesday, with about 75 races still undetermined at 4:19 a.m. Wednesday, per its live coverage. Ballotpedia's count at 1:30 a.m. put Democrats at a projected 231 seats or more and Republicans at 141 or more, with 14 Republican incumbents defeated and no Democratic incumbents defeated, in its November 4 summary. Our election-night report on the House result covers the flips in detail. Democrats also won the Senate, as we reported, which means Republicans will hold neither chamber when the new Congress convenes on January 3.

Johnson spoke to supporters on Tuesday night before the result was final. He said Republicans had needed to "defy more than a century of midterm history" and that "it looks like history will be kept," the Washington Examiner reported. He called serving as the 56th speaker "the honor of my life," said Republicans "will not be deterred" and pledged to retake the House in 2028. He said he had led almost 500 campaign events across 36 states in two years, and the Examiner reported he had raised more than $526 million for the cycle. A senior Republican leadership aide, speaking anonymously to the same outlet, called the results a "disaster" and worse than the party expected.

By Wednesday morning the recriminations were public. Axios reported that the defeat "has unleashed a wave of finger-pointing inside the House Republican conference," with members questioning whether Johnson or his deputies can survive next week's vote, according to the opening of its November 4 report. We could not open the full Axios article, so we cannot report which members it quoted or what they said beyond that framing.

The schedule and the arithmetic

House Republicans set the November 10 date before the election. The day begins with a two-hour candidate forum and ends with votes for leader, whip, conference chair and the other posts, The Hill reported on the schedule. The conference votes by secret ballot. The floor vote for speaker in January is a separate matter, and Republicans will not control it.

1. 2026-11-03Election Day; CBS projects Democratic House control at 10:15 p.m.
2. 2026-11-06Noon deadline to declare for a leadership post
3. 2026-11-10Candidate forum in the morning, conference votes in the afternoon
4. 2027-01-03New Congress convenes; the full House elects a speaker

Source: The Hill, CBS News

The size of the minority matters as much as its leader. In the minority there are two top posts, leader and whip, instead of three. That squeezes the current team of Johnson, Scalise and Whip Tom Emmer. Emmer has said he "plans on running for whip again next Congress," The Week reported. Puck's analysis, summarized by the same outlet, held that heavy losses among moderates would leave "a smaller but more conservative minority," which could favor Jordan. That is an inference from the composition of the losses, not a count of votes, and about 75 races were still open when it was made.$

Sources: CBS News on Johnson; The Week, citing The Washington Post and Semafor, on Scalise, Jordan and Emmer. None of the four had declared as of Wednesday morning.

What Johnson has argued

Johnson made his case for staying in an October 12 interview with CBS News' Robert Costa near his hometown of Shreveport, Louisiana. "I would expect my colleagues would call upon me to continue to lead the conference in divided government," he said. He cited the money he had raised, his travel schedule and his management of a narrow majority. Asked whether he could be a combative minority leader, he pointed to his work on the Judiciary Committee, his past as a constitutional litigator and his defense of Trump in two impeachment trials. He described himself as a "happy warrior" in the mold of Ronald Reagan and said he expected to be speaker "for at least two more years," per CBS.

That argument has two parts. The first is that the loss reflects history rather than leadership: the president's party has gained or held House seats in a first midterm only twice in 90 years, by his count on election night. The second is that fundraising and loyalty to Trump are the qualities the minority needs. Critics inside the party have not yet made a public counter-case on the record. Rep. Lauren Boebert of Colorado came closest in a November 2 interview with NewsNation's Blake Burman. She declined to commit to Johnson and said "we'll see what things look like after the midterms." She also said, "You don't fire your coach who takes you to the Super Bowl and wins," which cuts both ways once the team has lost, The Hill reported.$

What Jordan's and Scalise's camps have argued

Neither Jordan nor Scalise has said he is running. The case for each has been made by allies and reporters rather than by the men themselves, so we attribute it accordingly.

For Jordan, Punchbowl News reported in October that he "is very likely to run for GOP leader if House Republicans lose the majority," and that his inner circle was planning for a leadership election even as he declined to discuss it publicly (Punchbowl's post on X). A Politico reporter wrote in the spring that swing-district Republicans who blocked Jordan's speakership bid in 2023 were "warming up" to him as minority leader, quoting one as saying "he's definitely broadened his circle and his approach and his appeal" (Mia McCarthy's post on X). The argument for Jordan is that a minority exists to fight, that he is close to Trump and the Freedom Caucus, and that a smaller conference will be more conservative. Fox News' pre-election analysis noted he "lost multiple speaker votes in 2023, but has since rebuilt ties," in its leadership preview.

For Scalise, the case is continuity and seniority. He has been the number two House Republican since 2023 and was whip before that. Semafor reported that "most" Republicans expect both Jordan and Scalise to "make a play for minority leader," per The Week's summary. Punchbowl's Jake Sherman wrote on election eve that "the simmering fight over House Republican leadership is about to boil over in the next 36 hours," noting that Johnson would spend the night in Shreveport, Scalise in New Orleans and Emmer in Washington (Sherman's post on X). We could not open the full thread.

What Trump has said, and not said

Trump's words will carry weight in a secret ballot even though he has no vote. In his first-term midterm, he backed Kevin McCarthy for minority leader after the 2018 loss. This time he has been less direct. In a Politico interview at 11:22 p.m. Tuesday he said Johnson "has done a very good job" but declined to fully endorse him as House Republican leader, CBS's live blog recorded. On Fox News after midnight he said he was "a little bit surprised" by the losses and did not plan Cabinet changes.

Trump's public blame has fallen on candidates rather than on House leaders. He posted on Truth Social that "I wasn't on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!" and said Democrats "did a good job," PBS NewsHour reported. He called Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who lost, a "RINO." Our report on Trump's election-night reaction has the fuller account. He has said nothing public about Jordan or Scalise as of Wednesday morning. Johnson's own argument rests partly on closeness to Trump, so an endorsement of a rival, or continued silence, would change the race.

A note on reasoning. Trump's claim that Republicans "would have won in a landslide" had he been on the ballot cannot be tested, because he was not. The exit polls that are available point the other way: the networks' exit poll put his approval at 38 percent among midterm voters, and the AP Voter Poll found about two-thirds saying his policies worsened economic conditions, per CBS and the AP. Those surveys measure attitudes toward him, not a hypothetical vote, so they do not disprove the claim either. Our exit-poll report has the detail. Equally, the argument that history alone explains the loss does not settle whether a different leader would have lost fewer seats. Both are claims about counterfactuals, and neither side has evidence that resolves them.

What past speakers did

Johnson's intention to stay is unusual but not unprecedented. Most recent speakers who lost the majority left leadership: Dennis Hastert stepped aside after the 2006 loss, Paul Ryan announced his retirement before the 2018 loss, and Kevin McCarthy left Congress after being removed in 2023 while still in the majority. The main exception is Nancy Pelosi, who stayed on as minority leader after Democrats lost 63 seats in 2010 and returned as speaker in 2019. Her caucus re-elected her 150 to 43 in November 2010. The Week's summary of the 2026 field made the same point: "most modern House speakers have left Congress after losing the gavel," in its November 3 analysis. The Pelosi example is the one Johnson's allies can point to, and the McCarthy example is the one his rivals can cite. Neither tells us what 141-plus Republicans will do on a secret ballot.$

What the result means for the next two years

Whoever wins will lead a minority facing a Democratic House with subpoena power. Senior Democrats have said their targets include the Trump family's business dealings, the administration's handling of the Jeffrey Epstein investigation and alleged corporate corruption, the AP reported. Johnson warned of exactly this before the election, saying Democrats "will turn every committee of Congress into an investigative body," in remarks circulated on X. The minority leader's job will be to defend the administration in those hearings, hold the conference together on must-pass bills and raise money for 2028. Trump has said he has a "strong veto" and posted a photograph of a red cap stitched with "VETO." Our report on how governments abroad read the result covers what the new Congress can and cannot change.

What people are saying online

Our standard method is to read the hot listings of r/politics, r/Conservative and other subreddits, and X's trending and news tabs, then open individual posts. During this run every Reddit listing was blocked from our research desk, X's explore pages refused automated access, and our tool for opening individual X posts failed on every attempt. What follows is a small set of posts surfaced by web search, with permalinks. We could not open them to confirm wording or engagement, so we report no like or repost counts, and we quote only what the search index showed.

Sky News' account posted that Johnson "speaks in South Carolina as the Republican Party is projected to lose control of the House," and that Jeffries "is expected to succeed him as Speaker" (permalink). C-SPAN's account quoted Johnson before the vote: "It's a little silly you have to ask the question, of course we'll have a peaceful transfer of power. But it will not be transferring, because we are going to keep the majority" (permalink). MeidasTouch, a Democratic-aligned media company, posted in October that "panicked GOP lawmakers privately plot his replacement," quoting an unnamed Republican via Fox News as saying "Johnson's done" (permalink). That is an advocacy account relaying an anonymous quote, and we could not verify the underlying Fox report. We found no verified post from a Republican member of Congress endorsing or opposing Johnson on Wednesday morning. That is a gap in our sample, not evidence that none exists, and we will update as the field declares.

There is no representative poll of House Republican members on the leadership question, and none is likely. Polls of Republican voters on Johnson's performance exist but measure a different population from the 141-plus members who will vote. We therefore make no claim about what Republicans generally want.

What remains unknown

Who declares by Friday noon. Whether Trump endorses anyone before November 10. The final size of the Republican minority, with roughly 75 House races uncalled on Wednesday morning. Whether a second candidate for whip emerges if Scalise or Jordan loses the leader race. And whether the full Axios reporting, which we could not read, names members already committed against Johnson. We will report the declared field once the deadline passes.

Differing perspectives

Should House Republicans keep Mike Johnson as their leader after losing the majority?

Each position is summarized as its supporters make it, with equal weight and in alphabetical order. A summary is not an endorsement; the evidence for each is weighed in the story above.

• Decide after seeing the full results

  Who holds it: Rep. Lauren Boebert and other members who have declined to commit before the November 10 vote

  A third group says the conference should judge its leader by results and not prejudge the question. Boebert said before the vote that a leader who wins deserves to keep leading, comparing it to a coach who reaches the Super Bowl and wins, and that members would see what things look like after the midterms. On this view the size of the minority, which races were lost and why, and the president's preference should all be weighed before members commit, and the candidate forum on November 10 is the place to do that.

  In their words: The Hill, interview with Rep. Lauren Boebert on NewsNation, Nov. 2, 2026 ↗

• Elect a new leader from the conference's conservative wing

  Who holds it: Allies of Judiciary Chairman Jim Jordan and members aligned with the House Freedom Caucus, as reported by Punchbowl News

  Supporters of a change argue that a minority exists to fight, and that the conference should pick the member best placed to do so. They say Jordan has broadened his circle since his failed 2023 speakership bid, remains close to the president and the Freedom Caucus, and would lead a smaller and more conservative conference in the direction its members want. They point to reporting that his inner circle has been planning for a leadership election, and argue that losing the majority is the moment to choose a leader for opposition rather than for governing.

  In their words: Punchbowl News, post on X, October 2026 ↗

• Keep Johnson as conference leader

  Who holds it: Speaker Mike Johnson and members who credit his fundraising and his management of a narrow majority

  Johnson argues that the loss reflects a century of midterm history rather than his leadership, since the president's party has gained or held House seats in a first midterm only twice in 90 years. He points to the money he raised for the cycle, the hundreds of campaign events he led, and his record defending the president in two impeachment trials as proof he can be a combative minority leader. He says he expects colleagues to ask him to keep leading in divided government and describes himself as a happy warrior in the Reagan mold.

  In their words: CBS News interview with Speaker Mike Johnson, Oct. 12, 2026 ↗