Senate Republicans on Tuesday backed Senate Minority Leader John Thune (R-SD), voting to keep him at the helm of the caucus next year despite a sweeping midterm defeat that cost the party at least seven seats nationwide.
Behind closed doors, a majority of GOP Senators backed Thune, overcoming a last-minute push to delay the leadership elections as Republicans grappled with the scale of their electoral losses.
The secret ballot offered no indication of how individual senators voted. No one formally challenged Thune, and President Donald Trump stayed out of the leadership contest.
“Well, look, he’s a very fine man. I know him very well, but that’s really up to the Senate. I like John Thune,” Trump said. “I wish the Senate could get more done.”
Still, the quick timetable to hold leadership elections – which is the norm after elections – left a bad taste in the mouth of many GOP Senators hoping to change course. Among them is Pennsylvania Republican Senator John McCormick, who called for a delay to look into “what went wrong.”
“One of the things I learned in business and the Army is that after failure, you have to start with honesty, transparency, and accountability. A week ago, we had the worst election results in decades,” he said in a statement. “I don’t believe we should move to leadership elections until we have digested and debated the lessons of the midterms and how to move forward.”
He was not alone. Senators Ron Johnson (R-WI), Mike Lee (R-UT), Rick Scott (R-FL), John Kennedy (R-LA), Ted Budd (R-NC), and Jim Banks (R-IN) also called for a delay, according to Fox News.
“I simply won’t participate in business as usual,” Johnson said, who reportedly planned to walk out of the closed-door meeting. “An election defeat of this magnitude demands change.”
Since Trump’s return to office, conservatives have levied intense criticism against Thune for his handling of the GOP caucus and the pace at which he’s moved to advance the administration’s agenda. Most notably, Thune has rebuffed calls to eliminate the filibuster, which requires a steep 60-vote threshold to pass major legislation, including Trump’s signature SAVE America Act.
The election results saw Republicans lose at least seven seats nationwide, giving Democrats a larger-than-expected Senate majority. The races in Mississippi and Alaska remain too close to call, but Democrats lead in those contests, too. In the end, Democrats could open the new year with a 56-44 majority, a stunning repudiation of the 53-47 GOP Senate. Vice President JD Vance warned that the heavy losses could leave the GOP shut out of Senate control until at least 2032.
Gearing up for life in the minority, Thune previewed how he plans to counter an increasingly emboldened Democrat Party, which is poised to use its newfound power to launch investigations, force impeachment votes, and send a flurry of legislation to President Trump’s desk.
“Republicans are ready and willing to work with our Democrat colleagues, but that does not mean rubber-stamping a leftist agenda,” Thune said. “This election was a sign of Americans’ frustration with the high cost of living that they’ve been dealing with literally since the opening days of the Biden administration.”
“It was not a mandate for radical policy and socialist fantasies,” he added.
