WASHINGTON — As House Republicans’ narrow margin becomes even narrower, leaders are banking on near-perfect floor vote attendance during the final sprint to pass government funding bills and advance their agenda before the midterms.

But even that might not be enough, as they discovered Tuesday night.

“They better be here. I mean, I’ve told everybody, and not in jest, I said, ‘No adventure sports, no risk-taking, take your vitamins and stay healthy and be here.’ I mean, this is what we’re gonna be doing all year long,” Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said after six of his members helped tank a worker education bill.

Although three Republicans missed floor action on that bill, which was defeated 209-215, their votes still wouldn’t have been enough to overcome opposition among their own ranks. After the defeat, Johnson canceled votes scheduled later that night on two other measures, citing GOP concerns.

“This is life with a small margin,” Johnson added.

Two members said this week they’ll miss votes for an undetermined amount of time, with Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., citing his own surgery and Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., pointing to his wife’s. Rep. Wesley Hunt, R-Texas, who is running for Senate, also was a no-show Tuesday night.

Johnson was already dealing with some tough math even before Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga., resigned and Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., unexpectedly died last week. What was a 220-213 majority at the end of 2025 dwindled further.

“The leadership team’s made it pretty clear — you can’t miss one (vote) unless you’re not feeling well, or it’s gotta be something serious,” Rep. Don Bacon, R-Neb., said Tuesday. “It’s a concern, but it is what it is. It’s reality.”

Everyone showing up is the best-case scenario for leaders — as long as their members vote the way they want them to.

So far in 2026, attendance has mostly been in Johnson’s favor. Earlier on Tuesday, Republicans easily adopted the rule setting up consideration of the slate of labor and business bills, despite four absences.

Luckily for Johnson, six Democrats also didn’t make it. And Rep. Jim Baird, R-Ind., who was recently discharged from the hospital after a car accident, helped his party by showing up for the vote bruised and wearing a neck brace. The final tally was 214-207.

“Jim Baird, to his credit, is out there today,” said Rep. Mike Haridopolos, R-Fla. “People elected us to turn around the country, and you need to be here.”

Majority math

Going forward, assuming Murphy and Van Orden continue to miss votes and all Democrats are present, Johnson is working with a functional 216-213 majority. Pending a special election runoff to replace the late Texas Democratic Rep. Sylvester Turner scheduled for Jan. 31, Democrats are expected to add another vote to their ranks. That combined with any more absences on the Republican side could tip the scales toward Democrats.

That’s what happened during a Monday night vote series on a slate of noncontroversial bills, which passed with bipartisan support. As per usual on a fly-in day, absences were high — 27 Republicans did not vote during the last vote in the series, and neither did 14 Democrats. But the majority based on members present during that vote sat at 199-191, favoring Democrats.

Johnson can afford absences in the double digits during votes on bipartisan bills like those considered Monday night. But bills that don’t have Democratic support, like upcoming votes on thornier government funding bills, become more difficult in the face of no-shows.

Johnson and House Majority Leader Steve Scalise, R-La., earlier this week had brushed off concerns about the tight margins. When asked about absences, Scalise laughed. “Every day is narrow,” he said.

“We did this last year, and we had days where we had a one-seat majority, and then it popped all the way up to a whopping four-seat majority,” he added. “I’ll take the majority over the minority every day, whatever that number is. We can’t control what it is today, and today, we’re in the majority.”

Johnson said he also wasn’t worried about rules being voted down on the floor, even though GOP defectors tanked a few of those once-routine procedural votes last year. As the majority gets tighter, Republican members’ votes hold more political capital, and some have taken to demanding promises on issues close to them in exchange for their “yea” votes.

But even without the absences, Johnson cannot afford many defectors.

“We’re doing all the work, building consensus before things come to the floor. So I’m not concerned about that,” he said. “We have small margins, and we deal with that.”

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(Nina Heller contributed to this report.)

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