(NewsNation) — House Republicans on Tuesday night selected Rep. Mike Johnson of Louisiana as their next nominee for speaker of the House, hours after Rep. Tom Emmer of Minnesota was picked but dropped out of the race.
Johnson won the nomination in private balloting during a closed door conference meeting. When the House convenes at noon Wednesday ahead of a floor vote, Johnson will need almost all Republicans in the public roll call to win the gavel.
“Mike! Mike! Mike!” lawmakers chanted at a news conference afterward, surrounding Johnson and posing for selfies in a show of support.
Three weeks on, the Republicans have been frittering away their majority status — a maddening embarrassment to some, democracy in action to others, but not at all how the House typically functions.
Anxious and exhausted, Republican lawmakers are desperately trying to move on.
“Pretty sad commentary on governance right now,” said Rep. Steve Womack, R-Ark. “Maybe on the fourth or fifth or sixth or 10th try we’ll get this thing right.”
Elevating Johnson to speaker would giving Louisianans two high-ranking GOP leaders, putting him above Majority Leader Steve Scalise, who was rejected by hardliners in his own bid as speaker.
But hardliners swiftly resisted Johnson’s bid and a new list of candidates emerged. Among them was Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, a Trump ally who ran third on the Tuesday morning ballot, and a few others.
In the end, Johnson won 128 votes on the evening ballot, more than any other candidate. McCarthy, who was not on the ballot, won a surprising 43 votes.
“Democracy is messy sometimes, but it is our system,” Johnson said afterward, Scalise standing behind him. “We’re going to restore your trust in what we do here.”
Earlier Tuesday, Emmer had been chosen as the GOP’s nominee after an internal conference meeting. However, more than two dozen in the party said they wouldn’t vote for him — even after Emmer tried changing their minds.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., said Emmer quit the race as a message of “unity” for the party.
“He acknowledged that the numbers weren’t there and that he’s going to stand aside and allow somebody else that can find the numbers,” LaMalfa said.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., said she couldn’t back Emmer because he didn’t offer enough support to former President Donald Trump, according to NewsNation partner The Hill.
“He didn’t object to Joe Biden’s electoral college vote,” she said. “He has a voting record I couldn’t support, most Republicans, conservative Republicans, don’t support.”
Trump himself had weighed in on Emmer’s bid for the speakership, saying he has “many wonderful friends wanting to be Speaker of the House” but the Minnesota lawmaker “is not one of them.” It would be a “mistake,” Trump said, to give Emmer the gavel.
Initially, there were eight people being considered for speaker at the Tuesday meeting, though this number dwindled as the morning went on.
Since former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy was ousted three weeks ago, there’s been rising tension between GOP members of the chamber as they have struggled to unify behind one candidate.
Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan had put his bid in — but failed to garner enough votes last week from his fellow Republicans to clinch the speakership, with at least 20 voting against him in all votes taken. GOP House members who did not vote for Jordan expressed anger at McCarthy’s removal as well as irritation at the fact that Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., was forced to withdraw his candidacy for the role after Jordan supporters refused to back him on the House floor.
“We’re going to have to figure out how to get our act together — I mean, big boys and big girls have got to quit making excuses and we just got to get it done,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, R-S.D., a conservative caucus leader.
The fact that Republicans still have not been able to agree on a speaker nominee should “not be surprising to anyone,” Womack said earlier Tuesday.
“There is nobody in that room that is going to be able to get to 217 votes as we speak,” Womack said. “Now will time change the dynamic a little bit, will the pressure because of the world events and the fact that we’re on a continuing resolution, will that change the calculation? I don’t know. I doubt it.”
All this House dysfunction comes at a critical time for Congress — not only do members risk a federal government shutdown if funding legislation isn’t passed by Nov. 17, but President Joe Biden recently asked lawmakers for $105 billion in aid to help Israel and Ukraine.
Currently, Rep. Patrick McHenry, a North Carolina Republican, is acting as temporary speaker. There have been discussions about giving McHenry more power, though this has not yet come to fruition.
House Democratic leaders slammed Republicans Tuesday for what they say is continuing “chaos” in the majority party.
“Today is day 21 without a speaker, and the other side is back to square one,” Democratic Rep. Pete Aguilar of California said at a news conference. “House Republicans can continue down the path of destruction, or they can work with House Democrats in a bipartisan path forward to get back to doing the people’s business.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.