Mike Johnson Won't Run for House Minority Leader After GOP Midterm Losses, Sources Say

House Speaker Mike Johnson will not run for minority leader in the next Congress, according to multiple people familiar with his decision. He told staff on a call Wednesday morning, Nov. 4, the day after Republicans lost their House majority.

The sources include a person who told CBS News about the call, two people who spoke to Fox News Digital, and two who spoke to The Associated Press. All were granted anonymity. Johnson is expected to keep his Louisiana seat as a rank-and-file member. He won an eighth term from his Shreveport-area district.

The losses behind it

CBS News projected that Democrats will take control of the House in January with a wide majority. The Fox News Decision Desk projects the same, with Hakeem Jeffries set to become speaker. NBC News is projecting Democrats will reach 258 seats, according to one account. That would top the 257 Democrats won in 2008. The final size of the majority has not been officially called.

Fox reported that several prominent Republicans were projected to lose. They include House Administration Chairman Bryan Steil of Wisconsin, Rep. Tim Moore of North Carolina and Rep. Victoria Spartz of Indiana. NRCC Chairman Richard Hudson of North Carolina was also expected to lose, according to Fox. That would make the head of the House GOP campaign arm a casualty of his own cycle.

Johnson conceded the House Tuesday night at his party in Shreveport. He said Republicans knew they would "have to defy more than a century of midterm history" to keep the majority. "It's only happened twice in 90 years that a sitting president has picked up or held seats for his party," he said.

That is his case, and the history supports the starting point. The president's party usually loses ground in midterms. But Johnson spent the campaign insisting Republicans would beat that pattern, even as polling pointed the other way. He crisscrossed the country for candidates. It was not enough.

What Johnson said before

Johnson had sent mixed signals about his future. He told CBS News in October that he intended to remain the party's leader if Republicans lost the House. On Oct. 8 he told Fox News: "If heaven forbid, if we lose this majority or whatever, I don't know what my next chapter of life is. I'm just open to it."

He added that if "God moves on our hearts and says we should go back to my hometown of Shreveport and start a lawn business, I'll do that with equal fervor."

On Tuesday night he called serving as the 56th speaker "the honor of my life," and said it was "not a position we ever aspired to or expected to have."

His record as speaker

Republicans elected Johnson in October 2023 after three weeks without a speaker. That followed the ouster of Kevin McCarthy. Johnson was the party's fourth nominee, after Tom Emmer, Steve Scalise and Jim Jordan failed to unite the conference. Republicans re-elected him in 2025.

He led passage of the GOP's signature tax and spending package, which Trump signed. He also shielded the president and his administration from uncomfortable votes. That included a recent effort to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, which he blocked by sending lawmakers home. The Daily Beast reported he also fought efforts to constrain Trump on the war in Iran and worked to block release of the Epstein files.

The cost of that loyalty is now a campaign fact. Johnson delivered the president's legislative agenda with one of the thinnest majorities in modern times, and the voters sent the bill to him.

The fight to replace him

Jordan, the Judiciary Committee chairman from Ohio, is moving to run for minority leader, according to two people who spoke to Fox. Jordan sought the speakership in 2023 and failed to win enough votes.

Scalise, the House majority leader from Louisiana, is also considered a likely candidate by CBS. The AP expects a familiar showdown between Scalise and Jordan.

A GOP aide told CBS that House Republicans plan to hold their leadership elections on Nov. 10. The AP said only that members-elect will gather in Washington next week.

The larger vote comes Jan. 3, 2027. The new House will elect a speaker among its first orders of business, and Democrats are preparing to nominate Jeffries. With Democrats holding a wide majority, that vote is expected to pass the gavel to him.

The open question for House Republicans is whether Jordan or Scalise can assemble a majority of the conference on Nov. 10. The same conservative and far-right factions that split the party in 2023 are expected to be in the room.