HOLLAND, Ohio – Wherever House Speaker Mike Johnson goes, Donald Trump, seemingly, is not far away.
At a campaign stop for a House Republican candidate outside of Toledo, Johnson held up his cell phone as he has a dozen times before, and started filming — “Hey, Mr. President!” The crowd at the county GOP headquarters a couple hundred people deep knew what to do next.
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“Is President Trump going to win Ohio?” They roared.
As Johnson travels the country trying to save his House Republican majority, and his own job as speaker, he has linked ever more tightly to Trump, a once uncertain relationship that has become increasingly beneficial to both.
The speaker is relying on the former president for his own political survival in the chaotic House, but also presenting himself as a partner to Trump, prepared to potentially challenge the election results, and, if Trump retakes the White House, deliver a MAGA agenda in Congress. Trump said over the weekend they have a “little secret” for winning, and Johnson, who backed a legal challenge to the 2020 election Trump lost, did not contradict him.
With the presidency and control of Congress at stake, Johnson, who in many ways is an accidental House speaker after taking over after Kevin McCarthy was ejected in a historic far-right revolt, is uniquely positioned to play a central role in both outcomes.
“We’ve been working on this assumption all along that we have to make it ‘too big to rig,’” — and that’s not just a slogan,” Johnson told The Associated Press between campaign stops in Ohio over the weekend.
If Trump wins, as Johnson expects he will, “this will all be an afterthought.”
And if not?
“We’ll sort it out. We’re going to follow all the way through.”
It’s a remarkable journey for Johnson, 52, a religious-rights lawyer from Louisiana, first elected alongside Trump in 2016 and now second in the line of succession to the presidency. He celebrated his first year on the job last week, before arriving in the Buckeye State, among 230 cities in 40 states he has visited since seizing the gavel.
To hear Johnson tell it, Trump "is the head coach" and “I'll be the quarterback,” and together they are preparing to run the play on an “ambitious” 100-day agenda with Republican senators — cutting taxes, securing the U.S. border and taking a ”blow torch" to federal regulations — if they sweep the White House and Congress.
While Johnson did not call out Heritage’s Project 2025, he did describe a detailed proposal to push the federal agencies out of Washington and restaff the federal workforce, pointing to the America First Policy Institute and other think tanks with their databases of potential new hires.
“We’re going to be able to bring the federal government to heel,” Johnson said near Akron.
Johnson said he and Trump talk all the time about the plans.
“He’s thinking big about his legacy,” Johnson said. “He’s thinking big about what we can do.”
When health care came up days later in Pennsylvania, the speaker said: “No Obamacare” — though he clarified later he was not promising to do away with the Affordable Care Act, saying it was “deeply ingrained” in the health care system.
Trump loomed large in Johnson’s campaign stops, even in his absence.
At the Saturday evening event for Republican Derek Merrin who is challenging long-serving Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur, Johnson said the district that Trump carried in the last election provides an opportunity as they work to preserve — or grow — the GOP's slim majority hold on the House.
Standing under the fluorescent lights inside the Lucas County Republican Party office, Johnson shared a story about how he was telling Trump what a great candidate Merrin would be — “straight out of central casting,” he quipped, breaking into an impersonation of the former president — to the delight of the crowd.
Calling himself a “wartime speaker” because of the challenges at home and abroad, Johnson presents himself as cheerful and self-effacing, even as he portrays the election in the most stark terms.
“Right now we’re not in a battle anymore, just between R’s versus D’s, it's deeper than that. We’re in a battle right now between two completely different visions,” he said.
“What we’re conserving is, first of all, the Judeo Christian foundation of our country,” he said to applause.
“Amen!” shouted someone from the crowd.
Asked later about the role his faith plays in governing at a time of rising Christian nationalism, he shrugged off the scrutiny as a sad thing, and said he's no different than the founders envisioned for the country's leaders.
“I think it’s comforting to know," he said, that leaders “believe that they answer to a higher power than just our civil institutions, right?”
The next morning, Sunday, Johnson found himself at a brewery, of all places — the afternoon tailgate had to be rescheduled so he could make it to New York City on time to speak at Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden.
Coffee, rather than brews, was flowing, as he stumped for Republican candidate Kevin Coughlin who is trying to unseat Democratic Rep. Emilia Sykes in the Akron area. Adding to the GOP ranks would give Johnson some relief from a turbulent House with its slim, difficult-to-govern majority.
Johnson, who is not a large man, joked that he used to be four inches taller, but “the job beat me down.”
It’s likely, but not at all certain, that Johnson will have enough support from his own ranks to keep his job, if House Republicans retain the majority. There are dissenters, especially from the far-right flanks.
But in the end, Trump may have a final word.