Speaker Mike Johnson begins his battle for the gavel in Trump's Washington

WASHINGTON (AP) — Speaker Mike Johnson begins the tough battle for his gavel, a weeks-long election campaign that begins on Wednesday during the internal Republican leadership elections in the House of Representatives and will establish the new centers of power in Congress for a while Washington is dominated by President-elect Donald Trump.

Johnson and his leadership team are all working behind the scenes to garner support to stay in office. Johnson may not have a serious challenger, but he is in front of him Disagreements within its ranksparticularly from far-right conservatives and the Freedom Caucus, who are withholding their votes as leverage to extract promises for the future.

The speaker is expected to moderate Trump before the vote, present a unified front.

“This leadership will get to work immediately to implement President Trump’s agenda,” Johnson said on the Capitol steps Tuesday as lawmakers returned to Washington.

It has been a remarkable political journey for Johnson, the accidental speaker who came to power as the last and best choice to replace the ousted former speaker Kevin McCarthy more than a year ago and quickly set the course by siding with Trump and leading Republicans in the election.

As Johnson puts it, Trump is the “coach” and he is the “quarterback” as their GOP team prepares to officiate games in the new year.

Johnson has embraced Trump's agenda Mass deportations, tax cuts, layoffs of federal workers, and a more muscular image of the U.S. abroad. Together they have worked on what the speaker calls an “ambitious” 100-day agenda, hoping to avoid the mistakes of Trump's first term, when Congress was unprepared and wasted “precious time.”

“We’ll be ready from day one,” Johnson said.

While Johnson expects to lead the House of Representatives in a unified government, with Trump in the White House and Republicans have captured the Senate With the House majority vote still narrowly divided, the decision on House control is still unclear as final races, particularly in California, are too early to call.

But the problems that come with a slim majority in the House of Representatives and plagued Johnson's first year as speaker, when his own ranks routinely rebelled over his plans, are likely to spill over into the new year, with a possible new round chaotic governance.

Johnson only needs a simple majority in Wednesday's closed-door vote to win the GOP nomination for speaker. But he needs the majority support of the entire House of Representatives, 218 votes, to actually take the gavel on January 3, when the new Congress convenes and elects its speaker. It cost McCarthy a lot 15 rounds of voting in a week-long election for victory in 2023.

Trump complicated Johnson's problems by winning over House Republicans to his administration, further reducing the numbers. Some Republicans want the House leadership election to be delayed until control of the House is fully decided.

But with Trump in the White House, the speaker could enjoy a period of goodwill from within his own ranks as Republicans look to break governing norms and institutionalize Trump's second-term agenda.

“His challenge is what it always has been,” Rep. Ralph Norman, R-R-S.C., a member of the Freedom Caucus, said of Johnson.

But he said: “If Trump is in charge, it will be easier for him to achieve his goals.”

The Conservatives have debated whether to field their own candidate as a signal to Johnson as they advance their own priorities, using the same tactics as McCarthy to force the speaker to make concessions, particularly on deeper budget cuts.

As Johnson begins the budget process for next year, including using a so-called budget reconciliation process that makes it easier in a unified government to push Trump's agenda through the House and Senate with a simple majority, conservatives want him to bring those packages with him their voices charge their own political priorities.

The Democrats, who have repeatedly stood by Johnson in his administration in Congress – providing him with the votes needed to keep the federal government funded and repelling an attempt by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene to remove him from office – will back him probably won't help in the new year.

“The voters voted for her,” said Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., the chairwoman of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. “Let’s see what they do.”

Not only will the election of the speaker take place on Wednesday, but the Republicans will also decide how they will conduct the election.

Majority Leader Steve Scalise, also of Louisiana, and GOP Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota are expected to sail to their leadership re-elections.

The No. 4 position, chairman of the House GOP conference, is the most controversial because Trump has decided to tap Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York as his ambassador to the United Nations. Her departure opens the post to be contested by several Republican lawmakers.

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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Farnoush Amiri contributed to this report.