WASHINGTON — Speaker Mike Johnson is staring down a revolt from House Republican women.
Several female lawmakers have been increasingly defying Johnson, R-La., on legislative matters and lobbing public broadsides at him — including a member of Johnson’s own leadership team.
This week alone, Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, R-Fla., launched a discharge petition to go around Johnson and force a floor vote on a congressional stock trading ban, posting on X that she’s “pissed” that leadership isn’t moving fast enough on the issue while clarifying, “I like Mike.” Johnson prefers to go through regular order, and there has been an initial hearing on the issue.
Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, the chair of House Republican Leadership, not only signed on to Luna’s petition but also publicly unloaded on Johnson over an unrelated issue in the national defense bill, suggesting in a series of social media posts that Johnson lied about the matter. The spat has seemingly since been resolved, but the bad blood between the two has long been simmering.
Asked about Stefanik’s broadsides in the Capitol on Wednesday, Johnson shrugged off the complaints and said he’s “not worried” about his standing “at all.”
“There’s 220 or so people in this conference and lots of different opinions,” he told reporters. “Everybody’s not delighted with every decision every day, but that’s Congress.”
Meanwhile, a number of high-profile Republican women are fleeing the House for other opportunities, weighing retirement or quitting Congress early, fueling some concern that GOP women’s ranks could be depleted in the next Congress.
Taken together, it’s a sign of growing frustration among some House GOP women, who have less representation in leadership and hold only a single elected committee gavel. Two House Republican women, who spoke to NBC News on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive internal matters, said that they feel they have been passed over for opportunities, that their priorities don’t always get taken as seriously under Johnson’s leadership and that they believe that could be driving some of the exits and public fights with him.
“It’s a sea change — for the worse. And it’s one of the many reasons that numerous House Republican women are running for higher office,” one of the GOP women said, accusing Johnson of “undercutting” some Republican women. “I’m concerned there will be less Republicans in Congress, period, next year, and certainly that means there will be less Republican women.”
The second woman said: “We aren’t taken seriously. You have women who are very accomplished, very successful, who have earned the merit, who aren’t given the time of the day.”
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia — who blindsided Johnson with her recent resignation announcement, according to a GOP source familiar with the situation — has gone so far as to publicly accuse the current male GOP leaders of bias, telling The Washington Post in a recent interview she believes Republican women have been “marginalized.”
Greene and Rep. Nancy Mace of South Carolina, who has also been a vocal critic of Johnson, are scheduled to meet next week to talk about their shared frustrations, according to a source familiar with the matter.
A spokesman for Johnson’s political team said in a statement that he strongly supports the women in his conference and has been working hard to recruit even more women to the House, noting that several who are on the Speaker’s Joint Fundraising Committee have received an average of nearly $400,000 for their campaigns so far this year.
“Not only has Speaker Johnson elevated women in leadership, he has also helped recruit and support women running for office,” the spokesman said. “This cycle, we have women running in 10 of the top districts we are watching. Our team is in touch with them and others across the country — just as we were in 2024 — as Speaker Johnson works to recruit strong conservatives who can win, help us grow our majority, and help us deliver on our agenda.”
The majority of chairmanships and leadership positions are elected by the entire conference, but there are a few instances in which Johnson can make unilateral appointments or create new roles.
He appointed Rep. Virginia Foxx of North Carolina, 83, to lead the Rules Committee, making her the only female chair in the House. He also put three Republican women on the Intelligence Committee, including Stefanik, whom he also made the chair of House Republican Leadership after her U.N. ambassadorship nomination was pulled.
Still, there are zero elected female committee chairs — and some Republicans privately blame Johnson for that. During a GOP steering committee meeting at the beginning of this year, Johnson spoke favorably of Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who was running for the Foreign Affairs Committee chairmanship against Ann Wagner of Missouri. Some in the room interpreted that as Johnson’s signaling his preference, but Johnson insisted he wasn’t purposely trying to tip the scales. Mast won.
Republicans have long struggled with elevating women. A Republican woman has never served higher than as the GOP conference chair. That position, which is fourth-ranking in the majority and third-ranking in the minority, is held by Lisa McClain of Michigan. McClain nominated Johnson for the speakership.
McClain said in a statement that it’s an “absurd suggestion” to imply that Johnson hasn’t done enough to promote GOP women.
“As the House’s highest ranking woman, the Speaker has treated me with nothing less than respect. He values my opinion, not as a woman, but as a trusted colleague,” she told NBC News in a statement. “Driving an unnecessary divide over gender is a Democrat tactic, and Republicans would be foolish to give in to this left-wing framing.”
Floor problems
In recent weeks, sensitive issues related to women have pitted Republican women against their own leadership.
Four Republicans — Mace, Greene and Reps. Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Lauren Boebert of Colorado — were involved in a discharge petition to force a floor vote on releasing the Jeffrey Epstein files, saying they want to help deliver justice for the women the late financier sexually abused.
But it was the three Republican women who faced the brunt of a pressure campaign from both the White House and Johnson to drop off the petition. Johnson said he was against the discharge petition because he was concerned about protecting the identities of the female victims, although many of them had advocated for the release of the files.
The discharge petition ultimately succeeded last month, and when the vote outcome looked inevitable, President Donald Trump then decided to get behind the issue. It passed with just one no vote, and Trump signed it into law.
The same month, another divisive issue came to the floor — and it was once again predominantly Republican women who broke ranks with party leadership.
Mace forced a vote on a resolution to censure fellow GOP Rep. Cory Mills of Florida, in part over his alleged misconduct toward women. A judge granted a restraining order that an ex-girlfriend had been seeking, alleging Mills had harassed her and threatened her with blackmail and revenge porn.
Mills has denied any wrongdoing and has vowed to comply with the House Ethics probe, saying on the House floor, “I believe all the accusations and false things being said will be proven to be absolutely false in many ways, and I have the evidence and receipts and look forward to working with them.”
Eight Republicans voted with Democrats against a GOP motion to kill the resolution, six of them women: Mace, Boebert, Greene, Luna, Kat Cammack of Florida and Harriet Hageman of Wyoming.
Mace also wrote a letter to Johnson raising concerns about Mills but said she never received a response.
Johnson has argued he should let the investigative process play out, as the Ethics Committee has created a subpanel to probe the allegations against Mills. But some women were disappointed with his response when NBC News pressed them about the accusations at a news conference in October. Johnson called Mills a “faithful colleague” and then, growing frustrated with reporters for continuing to ask questions about Mills, suggested they “talk about some things that are really serious.”
Future GOP ranks
At least four GOP women won’t return in the next Congress, raising the possibility that the number of House Republican women could actually decline after the 2026 midterms. Greene is resigning, Stefanik and Mace are running for governor, and Rep. Ashley Hinson of Iowa is running for the Senate.
Greene and Stefanik are prolific fundraisers, and Stefanik in particular has worked to recruit and boost female GOP candidates through her PAC.
Hinson has also been seen as a rising star in the party since she flipped a Democratic-held House seat in 2020. That was a banner election cycle for House Republican women, whose ranks more than doubled from a low point of just 13 after the 2018 midterms.
There are 33 female Republicans in the House, including two nonvoting members, compared with 96 Democratic women. The number of GOP women in the House has declined slightly since the record number of 36 set in 2023.
“The departures of these women, particularly in the House, makes returning to or exceeding the record for Republican women in the House more difficult,” said Kelly Dittmar, director of research and a scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics at the Eagleton Institute of Politics.
While the number of GOP women who are retiring is still relatively small, Dittmar said a single loss is felt “that much more” because Republican women are already starting at low levels of representation.
“There’s so much we don’t know about whether or not this will be a good year for Republicans or Democrats. But certainly, from all we know historically, it will take a particularly good year for Republicans and a high level of Republican women running, which were the conditions in 2020, to ensure that you could make up for these losses and maybe even exceed,” she said.
Candidates are still considering and launching campaigns, so it’s not clear yet how many races will include Republican women.
Maggie’s List, a group that supports GOP women for office, announced Wednesday that it is endorsing four additional House candidates, including two in Republican-leaning districts: state Rep. Shannon Lundgren in Iowa’s 2nd District, which Hinson is vacating to run for the Senate, and former Rep. Mayra Flores, who is challenging Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez in Texas’ 34th District.
The group also backed three candidates for governor, including Stefanik, bringing its 2026 endorsements so far to 27 GOP women, including 18 House candidates.
Former Florida Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll, a national spokesperson for Maggie’s List, said she was confident that the number of GOP women in Congress would “stay steady.”
Carroll said Johnson has been supportive of their efforts, and he appeared at the group’s fundraiser in Washington, D.C. But she said the party has more work to do to support female candidates, saying, “We still have to prove ourselves over and over again.”
“On the Republican side, they try to, I guess, stay away from identity,” Carroll added later. “And on the Democrat side, they don’t care. They will embrace, if they’re pushing for more women to be elected, then that’s where the mantra will go and that’s where the money will go and that’s where the energy would go.”
Winning for Women, a group that also supports GOP women and has a super PAC to boost its endorsed candidates, is also focused on recruitment. Executive Director Meredith Allen Dellinger said Winning for Women has already met with 60 prospective candidates across 32 states and is endorsing contenders like attorney Jessica Hart Stein and Army veteran Alex Mealer, who are running in ruby-red Texas districts.
“Since getting into this fight in 2019, the number of Republican women serving in the House has more than doubled and today we have a record number of Republican women in the U.S. Senate. That progress is real, but there’s more work to do, which is why we’re heavily focused on recruitment this cycle,” Dellinger said in a statement, describing Stein and Mealer as candidates who “embody principled, solutions‑oriented conservatism and the leadership our party needs to build a durable House majority.”
And while various GOP groups are engaged in supporting female candidates, Dittmar said a lack of targeted infrastructure within the party itself is a “continued and persistent problem” for Republican women looking to grow their ranks.
“There’s just opposition to it, like there’s just both ideological opposition, strategic opposition to it,” Dittmar said, adding that Republican women have pushed efforts to support female candidates themselves.
The National Republican Congressional Committee also had an initiative in the 2014 election cycle dubbed “Project GROW,” aimed at recruiting and empowering female GOP candidates, but that program didn’t last long.
“All these efforts have just really struggled to stay,” Dittmar said. “And again, I don’t put it on the women. I think it’s the party overall that’s not seeing this as a priority.”