North Carolina House Republicans elected state Rep. Destin Hall as the chamber's next leader, handing the speaker's gavel the 37-year-old in accordance with a long-agreed to succession plan.

Hall, who will become speaker in January when the new legislature is officially seated, replaces Tim Moore, who is serving his record fifth term in that role. Moore, 54, was elected to the U.S. House from the Charlotte-area 14th Congressional District this month.

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In October 2023, top Republicans in the House threw their support behind Hall, making the House Rules Committee chairman the speaker-in-waiting. House majority leader John Bell, who was also in the running to be speaker, will replace Hall as rules committee chairman.

The voting was done by Republican members who will be in the body in January — 68 of the 71 were present. Hall and Bell said Tuesday that no other member ran for speaker.

"Being rules chair, I've always said, is kind of like being the speaker on training wheels. You get to do all of the work, but not on the glory," Hall said.

Hall, a lawyer from Lenoir, lives in Granite Falls and represents Caldwell and Watauga counties. He was first elected in 2016. He graduated from Appalachian State and earned a law degree from Wake Forest.

"He's energetic," Bell said. "He's got a legal background. He's done a great job as rules chair. But he's put a team around him that's going to support him. Even though he'll be brand new to the job, he's very attuned and very ready for the challenge."

In 2020, Hall became co-chair of the powerful rules committee — through which every piece of legislation must pass before getting to a vote on the House floor — and then became the committee's chair.

He has been a leader of the House Redistricting Committee since 2019, another high-profile role given the volume of election map changes in the intervening years.

Hall said that experience gave him confidence in becoming speaker.

"I began to think that I had some good ideas that I thought would be good for the caucus and good for the state," he said.

House Republicans are expected to have 71 members in the 120-person chamber, one shy of the necessary 60% of voting members needed to override a governor's veto without support of any Democrats. Democrat Josh Stein was elected governor earlier this month as Democrats took five statewide executive offices, including lieutenant governor, attorney general and public schools superintendent.

While there are several Democrats who have proven amenable to working with Republicans to pass legislation, it remains to be seen if Stein will be able to keep them from voting to override likely vetoes in the future. Hall said he would work with Democrats where they have common ground, but added that there were some issues on which the parties would not agree.

House Republicans voted Tuesday to strip powers from the governor and AG, moving some of their duties to Republican-held executive offices, as part of a Hurricane Helene relief package.

"Voters of the state have elected both sides in the executive branch and the legislative branch, and so we'll try to come to compromises where we can," Hall said.

"At the end of the day, we have a recipe for success for North Carolina that's tried and tested and it's been the case now for almost a decade and a half that's made this grow in population and income and just about any metric you can name."

Republicans have controlled both chambers of the statehouse since after the 2010 election.

Moore served as House speaker since 2015 succeeding fellow Republican Thom Tillis, who won election to the U.S. Senate in November 2014.

Rep. Brendan Jones, R-Columbus County, was elected to replace Bell as majority leader.

Rep. Sarah Stevens, R-Surry, will not continue as the speaker pro tempore of the House. Stevens is set to begin her ninth term in the House. Rep. Mitchell Setzer, R-Catawba, won that position during the elections. Hall refused to disclose who ran for each position in leadership or anything about the vote totals.

"The message that we have coming out of our caucus today is one of unity," Hall said. "We've got 71 members of the Republican caucus, and they're all moving in the same direction, making sure that we continue to pass the conservative reforms that have made North Carolina thrive."