{"id":118158,"date":"2026-05-17T17:30:10","date_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/118158\/"},"modified":"2026-05-17T17:30:10","modified_gmt":"2026-05-17T17:30:10","slug":"mike-johnson-links-strait-of-hormuz-crisis-to-gop-midterm-hopes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/118158\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Johnson Links Strait of Hormuz Crisis to GOP Midterm Hopes"},"content":{"rendered":"

House Speaker Mike Johnson<\/a> on Sunday said he remains confident that Republicans<\/a> can defy history and win the midterm elections<\/a> despite a razor-thin majority in the House – as long as the Strait of Hormuz is open, allowing lawmakers to focus again on “kitchen table issues.” <\/p>\n

Polling has shown a sour mood nationwide as the U.S. grapples with high prices for gas and oil<\/a>, which has resulted from Tehran closing the Strait of Hormuz in response to the joint U.S.-Israel strikes that killed Iran<\/a>‘s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and dozens of other top-ranking officials in the country. <\/p>\n

President Donald Trump is facing record-law approval ratings<\/a>, with recent polls from CNN and CBS showing the president at just around 35 percent approval, and most of the dissatisfaction has resulted from the strain that high gas prices<\/a> have put on the average American’s pocketbook. <\/p>\n

High Gas Prices Hit Americans in the Pocketbook <\/p>\n

During an appearance on “Fox News Sunday,” Johnson acknowledged that prices are too high and that the Strait of Hormuz is a direct cause of all of it, but he remains optimistic about the chances for Republicans to retain control of both Chambers of Congress – even as, historically, the party in power faces tough losses in the first midterms<\/a> after a presidential election if their party also controls the White House. <\/p>\n

“We were talking about the Strait of Hormuz. Really, all points lead back to that,” Johnson told Fox News host Shannon Bream. “Gas prices are too high because of that, and then that has an effect on how goods are transported to the grocery store and all the rest.”<\/p>\n

“So, as soon as we get that straightened out, we will get back to the kitchen table issues, the economic issues that we put in place to make the economy grow,” Johnson argued. “The working families tax cut, the big beautiful bill, all the legislation we passed put in pro-growth policies that will lead to bigger paychecks.”<\/p>\n

“We already had the largest tax refunds we’ve had in a long, long time because of our policies, and so we’re really excited [and] anxious for that to be resolved so that people will feel that, and I think they will before they go vote in the midterm,” he added. <\/p>\n

Johnson Addresses ‘Dissent’ Among Party Ahead of Midterms<\/p>\n

Johnson also discussed his difficulties wrangling the various competing “philosophical differences and preferences” among his party due to the thin majority increasing the influence any single party member has on a final vote: The most recent War Powers vote – the third attempt to pass a measure to limit the president from any further military action without congressional approval – was met with an even 212-212 count. <\/p>\n

“You see dissent here every day,” Johnson said. “I mean, I deal with it all day long with the smallest margin in U.S. history, working through people’s philosophical differences and preferences.”<\/p>\n

“But, you know, this is a vibrant party. It’s a strong party,” he added. “We’re in great position to win the midterms, defy history and win the midterms, and we’re excited about that, working every day to make sure that happens so we can keep this agenda going to bring America back.”<\/p>\n

\"Speaker<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"House Speaker Mike Johnson on Sunday said he remains confident that Republicans can defy history and win the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":118159,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28],"tags":[376,102,34,196,9918,1857,1288,101],"class_list":{"0":"post-118158","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-strait-of-hormuz","8":"tag-gas-prices","9":"tag-hormuz","10":"tag-iran","11":"tag-iran-war","12":"tag-midterm-elections","13":"tag-mike-johnson","14":"tag-republicans","15":"tag-strait-of-hormuz"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116591108083513875","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118158","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=118158"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/118158\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/118159"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=118158"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=118158"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=118158"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}