Speaker Mike Johnson on Wednesday easily batted down an attempt by Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia to oust him from his post, after Democrats linked arms with most Republicans to fend off a second attempt by G.O.P. hard-liners to strip the gavel from their party leader.
The vote to kill the effort was an overwhelming 359 to 43, with seven Democrats voting “present.”
Democrats flocked to Mr. Johnson’s rescue, with all but 39 of them voting with Republicans to block the effort to oust him. In addition to the seven who voted “present,” registering no position, 32 Democrats voted against thwarting Ms. Greene’s motion.
The Democratic support made the critical difference, allowing Mr. Johnson to avoid the kind of messy showdown on the floor that led to the historic ouster of Kevin McCarthy last fall. While for weeks Ms. Greene had appeared to be on a political island in her drive to jettison yet another G.O.P. speaker, 11 Republicans ultimately voted against blocking her motion.
That was the same number of Republicans that voted against killing the motion to remove Mr. McCarthy in October, but with Democrats joining them en masse at the time, the ouster effort survived and in a separate vote, he became the first speaker ever to be deposed.
“I appreciate the show of confidence from my colleagues to defeat this misguided effort,” Mr. Johnson told reporters shortly after the Wednesday’s vote. “As I’ve said from the beginning and I’ve made clear here every day, I intend to do my job. I intend to do what I believe to be the right thing, which is what I was elected to do, and I’ll let the chips fall where they may. In my view, that is leadership.”
“Hopefully,” he added, “this is the end of the personality politics and the frivolous character assassination that has defined the 118th Congress.”
