Ron Johnson Leads GOP Push to Delay Senate Leadership Vote in Blow to Thune
Senate Republicans are still reeling from Tuesday's midterm losses, and a group of GOP senators now wants to slow down the vote on who leads them next.
Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is leading an effort to postpone next week's Senate Republican leadership elections until the party takes a hard look at what went wrong.
The elections are scheduled for Tuesday at 9 a.m. in the Old Senate Chamber. Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota plans to seek another term as the conference's top Republican, his office confirmed. Because Democrats won the Senate, he would become minority leader if reelected.
'Political Malpractice'
Johnson has collected at least five signatures on a letter requesting a conference meeting to discuss delaying the vote. Under conference rules, five Republican senators can force such a meeting with a written request.
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Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida and John Kennedy of Louisiana are among those who have signaled support for a delay.
"We need to delay that. We need a robust discussion — I always call them a postmortem — of what happened," Johnson said on "The Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Show." "You just can't, 'Oh, let's elect this leadership team by acclimation.' That's unacceptable."
The senators' letter went further. "Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice," they wrote. "It is certainly not the way leadership elections should be conducted in the world's most deliberative body," the letter continued.
Johnson also posted bluntly after the election: "Our supporters expected us to drain the swamp, but it seems like the swamp won."
Lee and Scott Weigh In
Lee said Republicans have no business holding the vote until they have had a chance to discuss what happened on Tuesday and know exactly who will be in their conference next year.
Scott, who has challenged for the leadership before, backed the delay but said he will not run. "I don't want to run again. I've run twice," he said. "I think we oughta be listeners."
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Johnson proposed using Tuesday's meeting for a broader discussion and waiting to vote "until we all have a chance to hear from leadership candidates as to what type of collaborative conference governing model we should adopt."
Thune Stands Firm
No Republican senator has publicly announced a challenge to Thune so far.
Thune has made clear he wants to stay. "As we head into 2027, Senate Republicans will not stand idly by as the far-left, socialist wing of the Democrat Party attempts to unwind everything we've done," he said.
"Thankfully, we still have President Trump in the White House, and we'll work with him to stop the worst impulses of Democrat extremism," Thune added. "We cannot let their fringe positions become the mainstream."
Republicans lost at least seven Senate seats on Tuesday, and Democrats also won the House. Thune has led Senate Republicans since succeeding longtime Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell after the 2024 elections, defeating Scott and Sen. John Cornyn of Texas in that race.
Sen. John Barrasso of Wyoming, the current Republican whip, is also expected to seek another term as the conference's second-ranking member.