MITCHELL, S.D. (AP) — The gold-leafed ceilings and crystal chandeliers of Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort are a far cry from the small town of Murdo, South Dakota, where Sen. John Thune grew up. But that’s where the senator found himself this spring as he launched a bid to become the next Republican Senate leader.
Even before Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) announced he would end the longest leadership tenure in Senate history, Thune, 63, approached the fight with the same quiet intensity — fueled by an aversion to losing — that he learned on the basketball court and track at Murdo’s high school.
The outcome of the secret leadership vote, expected after the November election, is highly uncertain. It is a momentous choice for Senate Republicans as they emerge from the McConnell era, and a test of whether someone like Thune, who defines himself by the party’s traditional values and has at times defied Trump’s wishes, can still rise to power.
Senators John Cornyn of Texas, a former whip and powerful fundraiser, and Rick Scott of Florida, a Trump ally, are also in the race for leadership. Others could still enter the race.
Thune acknowledges moments of doubt about his place in the party, wrestling with whether to run again in 2022 when a clear path to Senate leadership awaited him.
“You get tired of the daily struggle,” Thune said of his considerations. “I may not be the best fit for this time in terms of style, the way I do things. But I just felt like the country needed some common sense, particularly if Senator McConnell were to step aside.”
So Thune made the trip to Mar-a-Lago. He hopes the visit — along with his endorsement of Trump for president — will convince Trump that they can work together.
Thune told The Associated Press that he views their potential relationship as “very professional” and that if they both win their respective elections, “we have a job to do.”
“I think he understands where I’m coming from, so we’ll see what happens,” Thune added with a laugh.
Throughout his political career, the South Dakota Republican has shown an athlete’s determination and sense of being in the right place at the right time. He formed a high school mentorship with former South Dakota Sen. James Abdnor, which led to his start in politics. He came back from a heartbreaking loss in the 2002 Senate race to successfully challenge then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat, and rise to the position of Senate Whip, the No. 2 position in the GOP leadership.
This year, Thune — like his high school 800-meter runner — has set a pace designed to wear down his rivals. He pledged a record $4 million to the Senate GOP campaign arm, held cross-party meetings this spring to drum up support and crisscrossed the country to help Republicans win a Senate majority.
But the drive to become leader has forced Thune to adopt a delicate stance: contrasting Trump’s political style but avoiding the direct confrontations that ended the careers of other Republicans.
Thune’s repudiation of Trump in late 2020 — in which he claimed that Trump’s efforts to overturn his election defeat would be received “like a shot dog” in the Senate — prompted the former president to unsuccessfully try to recruit an opponent to run against him in 2022.
Thune now argues that Trump can be trusted with the presidency, but he acknowledges that the transition of power was “difficult, painful and tumultuous in many ways.”
“I think I expect him to adhere to democratic norms. He will clearly do things his own way,” Thune said of Trump.
“Stylistically, it may not be the way I would do it or the way another former president has done it. But at the end of the day, the Constitution, the rule of law, governs this country. That is our founding principle and we cannot deviate from it.”
Thune also hates to lose.
He pulled a face as he talked about his loss in the 2002 Senate elections by 524 votes, a score achieved late on election night.
He felt a lump in his throat as he recalled his coach comforting him as he sat in the locker room after his potentially game-winning shot hit the rim in the final seconds of his high school basketball career.
When it came to basketball, a sport his father, a decorated World War II fighter pilot, had played at the University of Minnesota, Thune never held back.
“He would do anything to win,” said Chris Venard, who played center alongside Thune for the Jones County Coyotes.
On winter nights, virtually the entire town of Murdo, population less than 1,000, would gather for basketball games. It was a stopover for truckers and tourists making the crossing between the Missouri River and the Black Hills.
Thune’s father, Harold, a teacher and coach of the girls’ basketball team at the high school, took his sons to the gym on Saturday mornings to hone their skills. Thune remembers the game in which he scored 36 points, but his father, who hated ball hogs, singled out a play when he took a shot instead of a pass to Venard, who was standing open under the basket.
“My first instinct was always to score,” Thune said. “A lot of times he tried to curb that impulse.”
Thune’s worldview was also shaped by the evangelical Christian faith he inherited from his parents. He and his siblings attended Biola University, a Christian university in Southern California.
Thune said these lessons pushed him to strive for “a meaningful life” while approaching politics with “kindness and truth.”
Like many others, the Thune family was drawn into the Republican Party by President Ronald Reagan and his skepticism of “big government.” Thune recalls casting his first vote for Reagan and liking how he displayed “a sense of humor, a lightness of spirit and a cheerfulness.”
In more than a dozen interviews, colleagues, former employees and friends described Thune as a driven competitor but also someone who values candor, teamwork and humility.
“John is a first-class gentleman,” said former Sen. Bill Nelson, who led Democrats on the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee when Thune was chairman from 2015 to 2019.
As he whipped up a crowd at a South Dakota fair on a recent August day, it was easy to understand why Thune was encouraged by his Republican colleagues in the Senate to run for president in 2012 but ultimately didn’t follow through.
Leaning back with a smile spreading across a chiseled face, Thune slapped backs, remembered names and gripped hands tightly. People felt comfortable enough to call out “John,” and the senator got a good-natured nudge when he accidentally stepped forward to put barbecue sauce on his ribeye sandwich.
But the Republican Party has changed since 2012.
During another visit to a volunteer club in Sioux Falls, a man wanted to know: What are you doing to get Trump back into the White House?
“Well, we’re doing everything we can,” Thune began.
“No, you,” was the answer. “I want to know what you do?”
As the election approaches, Thune is trying to harness the mentality of an 800-meter runner in the final lap.
“It’s a brutal race,” he said. “But you have to keep going.”
