Mike Johnson won the House speaker fight. What about conservatives?

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA) won the election for speaker of the House on Wednesday.

The next question is: Did conservatives?

When eight Republicans joined with House Democrats in throwing out former Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA), most of them justified their move, which was not popular in the wider GOP conference and has received mixed reviews at best in polling of rank-and-file Republican voters, by saying a more conservative speaker was possible.

On paper, Johnson certainly fits the bill. His 2022 Conservative Political Action Conference (formerly American Conservative Union) rating was 91%. His lifetime rating over six years is 91.87%.

That’s better than McCarthy’s ratings of 82% and 84.08%, respectively, or House Majority Leader Steve Scalise’s (R-LA) 2022 rating of 82%, though only a touch better than his lifetime score of 91.43%. House Majority Whip Tom Emmer (R-MN) was just 73% last year and 79.63% over his congressional career.