Johnson Bets on Working Majority in Nov. 3 Midterms

House Speaker Mike Johnson says Republicans will hold their narrow House majority on Nov. 3, despite Democratic momentum, frustrated voters and margins about as thin as they come. During a campaign stop in Bangor, Maine, he pointed to the crowds he's seen on the trail, the quality of GOP recruits and incumbents, and nearly half a billion dollars he's raised for House Republicans.

"We run to win, and that's biblical: You run to win," Johnson told the Associated Press. "And I believe that we will."

The Campaign Trail

Johnson said he's on track to visit more than 20 states and 40 congressional districts through November. He said the mood reminds him of the 2024 election, which gave Republicans control of Congress and the White House two years ago. He isn't predicting a landslide. "It's not going to be a giant majority," he said. "But I genuinely believe that we will have a working majority."

That would defy the usual midterm pattern: the president's party tends to lose seats. Johnson has said he expects to buck it. He recently joked to Fox News that if Republicans lost power, he might head home to Shreveport, Louisiana, and start a lawn-care business.

The backdrop is hardly friendly. High prices, the Iran war and one of the narrowest House majorities in modern times all weigh on the speaker. Yet Johnson has held the conference together to advance President Trump's agenda across his three years in the job, often without a vote to spare. He led passage of a bill with major tax breaks and social-service cuts. Rep. Mark Harris of North Carolina, who joined the campaign swing, put it plainly: "So many times everybody had written off, there was no way he was going to be able to pull off a particular vote. Yet he always seems to pull out the win in the end."

Policy Agenda and Party Discipline

If Republicans keep the House, Johnson says the plan centers on "less taxes, less regulation." Trump, he said, "wants to go big for his legacy," and "we have big things on the horizon that we can do."

Across the aisle, Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, the House Democratic leader, is preparing a first-100-days agenda for a new Congress that would convene in January if control changed hands. A handful of far-left candidates backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are on the ballot, and Johnson has built his message around Democrats he calls "communists."

Keeping a razor-thin majority together takes more than speeches. Asked how he'd maintain party discipline, Johnson said he's preparing changes to House rules if he returns as speaker. "There's going to be some changes that are going to make the machinery work smoother," he said.

The party has faced turbulence. Trump purged House Republicans seen as disloyal, including Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky, who lost his primary, and Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia, who retired early after breaking with Trump over the release of the Jeffrey Epstein files. After relative stability over the previous two years, the White House has returned to a state of disarray, the article said.

Congress and the Executive

Johnson's critics argue Congress has handed power to the president. The speaker recently sent lawmakers home early rather than face a vote forced by Massie to impeach Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth, as lawmakers tried to halt the Iran war, which Congress hadn't authorized. Critics also saw Johnson's gift of a speaker's gavel to Trump, presented as Trump signed the "One Big Beautiful Bill," as surrendering the authority of a coequal branch.

Johnson, a former constitutional lawyer, rejected the charge after rallying for House candidate Paul LePage, a former governor. "Absolute nonsense," he said. "We did not yield Article 1 authority to the president." Congress, he said, "used our own" powers to advance Republican priorities over Democratic opposition.

First elected alongside Trump in 2016, Johnson became speaker in 2023 after renegade Republicans ousted Kevin McCarthy of California. Before the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, five years ago, he had organized support for Trump's false claims of widespread fraud in the election Trump lost to Democrat Joe Biden. He's expected to win his own reelection next month.

Faith at the Center

Johnson doesn't hide where he draws strength. "My faith is a huge component of how I think and how I act and what I do," he said. He led a public prayer on the National Mall as part of the nation's 250th anniversary. He says he's drinking lots of coffee, cutting back on Celsius, and still has 1,413 unread text messages, slightly fewer than a few months ago.

He's also grateful for the prayers sent his way. "I pray for God's will. And I believe God's will is for us — and not the communists — to be in charge of America," he said. Citing 1 Corinthians 9:24, he added, "And it does say in the New Testament, you run the race to win. This is a biblical admonition. So we will."

Why This Matters:

A handful of seats in a shrinking number of competitive districts are expected to decide the House majority. Control of the chamber will determine whether the tax-and-regulation agenda Johnson describes moves forward or stalls under a Democratic speaker. A Republican hold would mean continued unified government and a push for further tax cuts and lighter regulation. A Democratic win would put Jeffries's first-100-days agenda on the table and likely bring a very different fiscal direction. Questions about congressional authority — from the unauthorized Iran war to the Hegseth impeachment vote Johnson sidestepped — show how much depends on whether Congress asserts its own powers or defers to the executive. Voters weighing high prices and a war abroad will answer on Nov. 3.