2019 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

2019 Speaker of the United States House of Representatives election

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Needed to win: Majority of the votes cast 430 votes cast, 216 needed for a majority
Majority party Minority party   Candidate Nancy Pelosi Kevin McCarthy Party Democratic Republican Leader's seat California 12th California 23rd Members' vote 220 192 Percentage 51.16% 44.65%   Candidate Others Members' vote 18 Percentage 4.19%
Speaker before election Paul Ryan Republican Elected Speaker Nancy Pelosi Democratic

On January 3, 2019, the first day of the 116th United States Congress and two months after the 2018 U.S. House elections, the incoming members of the U.S. House of Representatives held an election for speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. This was the 126th U.S. speaker election since the office was created in 1789.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi received 220 votes, a majority of the chamber, to become its speaker. House Republican leader Kevin McCarthy garnered 192 votes, with 18 more going to others. As only 430 representatives in the 435-member House cast a vote (due to vacancies, absentees, or members being present but not voting), 216 votes were necessary in order to win.

Immediately after the election, the Dean of the United States House of Representatives, Don Young, administered the oath of office to the new speaker. Pelosi in turn administered the oath of office en masse to the rest of the members of the United States House of Representatives.

Incumbent speaker Paul Ryan did not run for re-election to the House.^[1] With the Democratic caucus assuming control of the House in January 2019, Pelosi had been the speaker-presumptive since the incoming House Democratic Caucus formally nominated her the previous November.