A survey by ultra plugged-in Beltway insider tip sheet Punchbowl News finds that just 38 percent of Republicans on K Street – the lobbying firm neighborhood of Washington, DC – think Mike Johnson is an “effective” Speaker of the House, another 25 percent saying he’s “ineffective,” and the remaining 36 percent answering “neither/don’t know.” They also polled Dem lobbyists and found just 21 percent calling Johnson effective to 56 percent ineffective and 23 percent don’t know.
We think this is significant because it appears under a section of Monday’s edition titled “K Street Republicans doubt Johnson’s abilities as speaker,” but unhelpfully Punchbowl doesn’t mention any past surveys about Kevin McCarthy or Nancy Pelosi as a baseline for comparison (they launched in January 2021). It’s also not clear how much it actually matters in the real world if lobbyists think Johnson sucks at the job, though we do have to give them some credit for framing the question properly. If it was “Is Mike Johnson making your job easier?” then that would be a “I’m not beholden to corporate shills” badge of honor for the Jesus dork to fundraise off of. Just an up or down vote on his effectiveness as Speaker from informed observers – many of them former members or high-level aides themselves – is noteworthy and not in a good way even for want of a little more context.