Thune Reelected Senate Republican Leader

Senate Majority Leader John Thune was reelected to a second term atop the Republican conference, a sign of confidence in his leadership, only days after the party’s major losses putting them in the minority next year.

The main factor ensuring his win was that Thune ran unopposed and ultimately secured it handily after a lengthy sit-down in the old Senate chamber. He needed 24 votes at minimum to remain in the post, which will look much different when he takes over as minority leader.

The lead-up to the vote did involve some drama. A handful of conservatives, dismayed by the midterm elections that resulted in the loss of at least seven seats, pushed for leadership elections to be delayed to give members more time to sort through what went wrong.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who spearheaded the effort to postpone the election, argued that moving to cement the leadership team after last week’s drubbing was a misstep.

“After the stunning defeat, you just can’t continue on business as usual. That kind of defeat demands change,” he told reporters on Monday. But he acknowledged that Thune was unlikely to face a challenger. “That’s part of our problem. Who’d want the job? Would you want it?”

“At a minimum, we need to see out of our leadership team, what’s the strategy moving forward? You can’t come off a defeat like that and just ram through elections and ‘Oh yeah, let’s just elect that leadership team by acclamation,’” Johnson complained. “You need to have some real soul-searching, some robust discussion.”

He said it was “obnoxious” to vote just a week after the stunning losses with little time for people to reevaluate.

Sens. Ted Budd of North Carolina, John Kennedy of Louisiana, Mike Lee of Utah and Rick Scott of Florida signed Johnson’s letter.

The move triggered a special conference meeting on Tuesday morning that ran overtime, forcing the conference to reconvene after lunch. Senators described a lot of venting but little in the way of contentious back-and-forths. They also noted that no one was challenging Thune for the job.

“The same people who talk at every lunch spoke once again with the same thoughts they have had in my years here … and they express those at every lunch, every time we meet. And they are expressing those now,” one Senate Republican member said on the condition of anonymity to describe internal discussions. “It’s just the same churning and cleansing of their souls.”

The attempt to delay matters further failed. A source familiar with the vote said it failed 15 to 31, and the Republican conference proceeded with voting for the leadership team, acclaiming Thune by voice vote.

The rest of the Republican leadership team was also cemented.

Sen. John Barrasso was reelected as party whip. Sen. Tom Cotton remains chair of the Republican conference. Sen. Shelley Moore Capito won a second term as policy chair, while Sen. James Lankford will stay on as conference vice chair.

In the lone change, Sen. Bernie Moreno will replace Sen. Tim Scott as chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Johnson left the meeting without voting, and told reporters the party needs to remain unified.

“I’m not trashing our conference,” Johnson said. “I said I would not participate in that election, and I’m honoring that commitment … I think, you know, the one very strong area of agreement is we need to have more discussions like that.”

That does not mean that lawmakers are satisfied after the party’s drubbing last week, which could see them lose as many as nine seats, with Sens. Dan Sullivan of Alaska and Cindy Hyde-Smith of Mississippi both trailing in their contests.

“When you lose this many seats, and you have the kind of record that this Congress has had, I think we better have a pretty tough family conversation about what it is we’re doing,” Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri told reporters. “When you cut Medicaid, but you fund data centers; when you cut rural hospital funding, but you fund Planned Parenthood; when you let the costs of health care for working people go through the roof, but you can’t do anything for them on other issues of affordability, from fertilizer to gas and anything else — yeah, you know what? The American public doesn’t like that very much.”

“I’m not happy,” he added.

Notably, little of the lengthy morning discussions centered on Thune, whom Sen. Kevin Cramer of North Dakota said was seldom mentioned.

Others indicated that they didn’t blame him for what happened last week, including those who commonly dissent.

“I don’t think the problem is necessarily the people up here in leadership. I don’t think anybody in Texas who voted for the Democratic governor was voting against John Thune,” said Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. “So if you diagnose that as a problem, you’re misdiagnosing the problem.”

Notably, President Donald Trump stayed on the sidelines and declined to weigh in on the race one way or another. During a press conference, Trump called Thune a “very fine man” and said the members would decide on their leaders.

“I know him very well, but that’s really up to the senators. I like John Thune. I wish they could get more produced,” Trump said, adding that Thune’s job is “not easy” and that some members of his conference are “very difficult.”

Trump has made his frustrations with Thune known over the past year, especially with Senate inaction on the SAVE America Act and other top priorities. Thune told The Sun in an interview before the election that he expected to be blamed for any losses but also expected to remain as the party’s leader.

This story was updated to add quotes and details.