Longest House leadership conflict of modern times ended the way wars sometimes do, with both sides losing the stomach.

Mike Johnson was elected the 56th speaker of the House of Representatives on Wednesday amidst cheers, standing ovations, and smiles from his Republican colleagues which belied the seething tensions within the party.

It wasn’t so much for what he wasn’t as what he was that the mild-mannered, bespectacled Louisianan prevailed over the three previous Speaker-designates.

The Republican House leadership had rejected its top three officeholders – Kevin McCarthy, Steve Scalise, and Tom Emmer – over the past three weeks.

The Ohioan wasn’t an ideological bomb-thrower like Jim Jordan, who was beloved by Donald Trump and the party’s populist right but despised by centrists and institutionalists whose legislative work he frequently derailed.

Rather, Mr Johnson, the former chairman of the House’s arch-conservative Republican Study Committee, was trusted by the party’s right wing without the baggage that made him an enemy elsewhere.

While he has taken controversial positions, including supporting a nationwide abortion ban, backing Mr Trump’s efforts to reverse the 2020 election results and fighting against gay marriage rights, he has largely done so quietly.

As an example, Ken Buck had strongly opposed Mr Scalise and Mr Jordan’s refusal to acknowledge Joe Biden’s victory.

On Wednesday, he voted for Johnson, an architect of Mr Trump’s multi-state legal challenge to the 2020 election.