The Louisiana Republican, supported by President-elect Donald Trump, did not get the 218 votes needed to lift the gavel in the first round, while the Democrats voted en bloc (215) for their minority leader, Hakeem Jeffries.

Johnson faced opposition among members of his party angry with the agreements to approve a spending bill, but ultimately kept his position with the narrowest majority in almost a century.

For the speaker’s victory in the second round, it was necessary to convince representatives Ralph Norman, Thomas Massie and Keith Self, who initially gave their support to another person.

In the Senate, 12 of its 100 members won the seat in the last election, while in the House of Representatives there are more than 60 of the 435 that make up that body. All will be sworn today, January 3.

So the Capitol will conclude the hustle and bustle between those who leave and pack, and those who arrive to settle in Washington.

The new Congress will have important decisions before it, such as the spending plan that must be discussed in March and that at the end of November was the subject of last-minute negotiations in the current legislature after the opposition of Trump and his ally Elon Musk to a bipartisan agreement to avoid the closure of the government.

Johnson’s election in October 2023 came after a process of internal chaos in the party, when he emerged as the fourth option of the Republicans after the proposals of Steve Scalise, Jim Jordan and Tom Emmer.

Neither of them managed to gather enough support to succeed Kevin McCarthy, who was expelled that month by a motion presented by then-Florida representative Matt Gaetz, a member of the most conservative wing of the party in the chamber and until recently Trump’s nominee for attorney general in his second administration.

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