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- House Republicans are struggling under Mike Johnson's leadership following Kevin McCarthy's ouster.
- Johnson's inexperience has led to the GOP's shrinking House majority and inability to pass bills.
- McCarthy may not have been able to solve all of Johnson's struggles, but he'd be an improvement.
After four months of failed votes, retirements, and shrinking the party's already-narrow majority, House Republicans are feeling the harsh effects of ousting then-Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy from his leadership role in October 2023.
McCarthy's ouster, initiated by Republican firebrand Rep. Matt Gaetz, led to weeks of dysfunction, debate, and frustration in the lower chamber until the GOP finally decided to replace him with Rep. Mike Johnson.
Johnson became the highest-ranking House official less than 7 years after he joined Congress. Before obtaining the speakership, his highest leadership experience came from his nearly three years as the vice chair of the House Republican Conference, where he had scant experience raising money and campaigning for other Republicans.
Four months after becoming speaker, Johnson's inexperience is showing.
Under his leadership, Republicans in the House helped expel fellow conservative then-Rep. George Santos in December, leading to the Democratic Party winning the seat by 7.7 percentage points just over a year after Santos flipped it red by around 8 percentage points. As a result, the GOP now only has a two-vote majority in the House.
Because of this narrower majority, Johnson has an increasingly difficult job getting House Republicans to vote in lockstep — practically the only way the conference can pass legislation without relying on Democratic votes.
As a result, Johnson has lost six rule votes on the House floor, hindering the party's ability to even try to pass its top priorities.
Johnson's inexperience as a leader is compounded by an apparent unwillingness to compromise or settle. These traits, along with a push from former President Donald Trump, led to the GOP losing out on border reforms it has requested for years.
This isn't all to say that McCarthy would've been able to solve all of Johnson's current struggles had he not been ousted. It's clear McCarthy already had detractors in the GOP conference — 8 Republicans voted to remove him — and he had already feuded with Trump at points in the past.
But McCarthy had a history of finding middle ground and negotiating with Democrats, something Johnson has appeared unwilling to do at times.
McCarthy also had ample experience fundraising and propping up trailing candidates, attributes that could've helped New York special election candidate Mazi Pilip on Tuesday.
Had he not been removed, the silver-haired Californian may not have fixed everything for the House GOP, but it certainly seems like he — or someone other than Johnson — would've been better suited to lead the party.
Or as one House Republican put it bluntly earlier in February: "Getting rid of Speaker McCarthy has officially turned into an unmitigated disaster."