U.S. House of Representatives Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) speaks during a press conference after the House Republican caucus at the Capitol in Washington, September 1, 2026.
Eric Lee | Bloomberg | Getty Images
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-Louisiana) has promised a peaceful transfer of power after the election and called concerns that President Donald Trump and Congressional Republicans could challenge the results if Democrats win a majority in Congress “ridiculous.”
“We’re going to follow the Constitution. The Constitution says that when states certify elections for members of Congress, they take an oath. That’s what I’m going to do to everyone there on January 3rd,” Johnson said Tuesday in response to a question from MS NOW while on the campaign trail with New York Republican Rep. Mike Lawler, a week before the Nov. 3 midterm elections. “You may not like some of those results, but that’s our system. And it’s ridiculous for anyone to suggest otherwise.”
Democrats and voting rights advocates are bracing for potential challenges if control of the House of Representatives flips, as widely expected, or if control of the Senate, where the race is much closer, flips. Republicans hold a majority in both houses of Congress.
President Trump, who has falsely claimed that widespread fraud cost the 2020 election, has fueled these fears by calling earlier this year to “nationalize” the election, repeatedly questioning the security of mail-in voting, and suggesting that non-citizens could vote in large enough numbers to skew the results. His administration sued California on October 15 over a dispute over non-citizen votes.
The Justice Department also filed a lawsuit against the state of Alaska on October 22 to block the certification of the results in the event of voter confusion. Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan will appear on the ballot next to Daniel J. Sullivan, a retired teacher who Republicans say is on the ballot only as a spoiler candidate.
Johnson, who was a key ally of Trump in Congress after the 2020 election in efforts to overturn the results, said Tuesday that questions about peaceful transfer were “a little ridiculous.”
“Of course we’re going to have a peaceful transfer of power, but we’re not going to transfer it because we’re going to maintain a majority and I’m going to be Speaker and I’m going to have a firm grip on the wheel,” Johnson told reporters.
