Mike Johnson wins first round of GOP Speaker of the House voting, but he doesn’t have a majority

The House GOP is trying to pick another Speaker nominee after Tom Emmer dropped out of the race earlier today. In the first round of closed-door voting, Louisiana’s Mike Johnson garnered the most votes:

• Mike Johnson: (LA): 85 votes
• Byron Donalds (FL): 32 votes
• Mark Green (TN): 23 votes
• Roger Williams (TX): 21 votes
• Check Fleischmann (TN): 10 votes
• Other: 31 votes
• Present: 2 votes

Since Fleischman received the lowest number of votes, he is out of the race.

Johnson is an outspoken evangelical Christian who has served as a trustee of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission. He is a favorite of the Christian Right, especially the Family Research Council. In a 2016 interview he said, “My values follow the model of our Founding Fathers, I believe, and I think this is important…We were established as one nation under God. We are perilously close to forgetting that principle now – and we desperately need to return to this fundamental understanding.”

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