WASHINGTON – Senate Minority Whip John Thune was elected Wednesday as the next Republican leader in the Senate, multiple media outlets reported. This guarantees that Senator Mitch McConnell’s right-hand man will lead the new Republican majority as newly elected President Donald Trump begins his second term in the White House. year.
The secret elections were held in the Old Senate Chamber, an ornate semicircular room in the Capitol where lawmakers met before the Civil War. Thune hit his colleagues John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida during an internal party vote.
Thune, 63, a member of the GOP leadership team and first elected in 2004, is an establishment figure likely to continue McConnell’s focus on confirming judges and advancing a traditional conservative platform: tax cuts , defense spending and deregulation.
The soft-spoken South Dakotan has recently made efforts to resolve the complicated relationship with Trump. In 2020, he chided Trump for trying to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election. And in 2016, the senator called on Trump to end his bid for the White House after the release of the infamous “Access Hollywood” tape in which Trump bragged about sexual assault. However, he has since embraced Trump and pledged to fully implement his agenda in Congress.
“We have an ambitious agenda, and it will take all of us – every Republican – working together with President Trump’s leaders to make it a reality,” Thune said. wrote in an op-ed published by Fox News on Tuesday. “If we do not successfully carry out our mandate, we risk losing the coalition that brought Republicans to power during the elections.”
Cornyn, 72, served as Senate GOP whip during Trump’s first two years in the White House, when Republicans last controlled all three branches of government. His pitch to his colleagues included his work in passing Trump’s 2017 tax cuts into law and his strong ability to raise money on behalf of the party. His supporters argued that he is closer to Trump than Thune because he spent time with the former president during his campaign in recent weeks.
Although Thune and Cornyn were seen as nearly identical candidates with perhaps some stylistic differences, Scott had the support of the party’s more conservative wing and top MAGA voices, including billionaire Elon Musk, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Tucker Carlson. But an online campaign in support of the 71-year-old Florida Republican may have backfired in the closing days of the race. Republican senators and aides were not amused when Scott’s supporters urged voters to turn on the phone lines in Republican Senate offices. One Republican senator even saw protesters collection outside her home state office in support of Scott.
‘They’re trying to bully us. That’s not how these elections work,” said an unnamed Republican senator complained to Punchbowl News.
Scott may have been the closest candidate to Trump, but his record in the Senate could have given some senators pause. He chaired the National Republican Senatorial Committee during the 2022 campaign cycle, when Republicans not only failed to win a majority but actually lost seats. Some Republicans grumbled privately that his hands-off approach to candidate recruitment — which allowed Trump to endorse weak candidates in several races — hurt their performance that year.
Over the weekend, Trump pressured all three candidates to bypass the Senate’s regular order if necessary so he could quickly fill his Cabinet when the House is in recess, bypassing a confirmation vote. All three senators quickly suggested they might be willing to reconsider the practice, despite the Republican Party’s longstanding opposition to so-called recess appointments since a 2014 Supreme Court ruling limited the president’s power to do so.
All three candidates also pledged to be more transparent in their decision-making and to give senators more power to bring up their priorities. Rank-and-file members have complained for years about McConnell’s management of the conference, including by hoarding information and power on key legislative issues and by deploying millions of dollars in outside resources to support favored Senate candidates.
The senator from Kentucky, who will step down as party leader at the end of this year after 19 years and serve the remainder of his term, warned Earlier this year, it was noted that decentralizing the role of party leader would make the Senate more like the House of Representatives, where far-right Republican demands weakened the presidency last year and caused chaos.
