Senate GOP rebellion fizzles as Thune keeps power despite historic midterm massacre

There was neither an exodus nor a mass housecleaning in the Senate GOP leadership, despite frustration and rumblings of discontent among some lawmakers reeling from last week’s devastating midterm losses.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., secured another term as the top Republican behind the closed doors of the Old Senate Chamber, where lawmakers charted their course for their few remaining weeks in power and beyond.

Thune, along with the bulk of his leadership team, which now includes Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-Ohio, were swiftly elected after a group of Republicans failed to delay the leadership elections. 

It wasn’t without a fight, though, with conversations behind closed doors dragging on for over seven hours. 

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Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., led the charge to delay, and didn’t stick around after his attempts to do so failed on a 31 to 15 vote in the Old Senate Chamber to proceed with the scheduled election. 

Johnson and others wanted to have a deep conversation about what had happened during the midterm elections, and a roadmap on what Republican leadership candidates could accomplish with the little time they had left in power. 

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But there was no opposition to any of the lawmakers running for leadership. 

“This has never been anything against John Thune,” Johnson said. “I think he has been very unfairly attacked, you know, by our base, and I don’t agree with that. What I didn’t agree with was holding the election right away, giving nobody an opportunity to really challenge any leadership position.”

On Monday, Thune was adamant that he’d still run but was unsure of the outcome.

“That’s the hope,” Thune said when asked if he had the Senate GOP’s support. “You never know right until they vote.”

Before the vote, Johnson and a handful of others believed there should be a shakeup in leadership, but didn’t offer an alternative to Thune.

“After the stunning defeat, you just can’t continue on business as usual,” Johnson said. “I mean, that kind of defeat demands change.”

When asked if he’d be interested in running, Johnson said, “That’s part of the problem. Would you want it?”

“I think there’s a number of people with talent,” Johnson said. “Again, I’m not — at a minimum, we need to see out of our leadership team what’s the strategy moving forward, and you can’t come off of a defeat like that and just ram through elections and oh yeah, ‘let’s just elect that leadership team by acclamation.’”

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., had previously run for leader twice and most recently against Thune. But the lawmaker, who joined Johnson’s crusade for change, declined to throw his hat into the arena again.

“I think we have to acknowledge the voters are not happy,” Scott said. “We have to start listening to voters.”

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Scott wanted ironclad promises on the GOP’s to-do list, including ramming through judicial nominees, government funding “without a massive omnibus,” a stock trade ban, permitting reform, passing the National Defense Authorization Act, taking another crack at the SAVE America Act and balancing the budget — possibly through budget reconciliation.

Johnson and Scott were joined by Sens. Ted Budd, R-N.C., Mike Lee, R-Utah, John Kennedy, R-La., Jim Banks, R-Ind., and Dave McCormick, R-Pa., in a push to delay the elections that was not met, and the would-be coup faded as the secret ballots were cast.

Still, there were others outside that cohort who weren’t happy with last week and believed that there should be deeper soul-searching on what Republicans did over the last two years that led to a historic night for Senate Democrats.

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Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., contended that much of what the GOP listed as accomplishments over their time in power is what worked against them.

“And, you know, 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,” Hawley said.

“When you cut Medicaid, but you fund data centers, when you cut rural hospital funding, but you fund Planned Parenthood, when you let the cost of healthcare for working people go through the roof, but you can’t do anything for them on other issues of affordability, from fertilizer to gas,” he continued. “Yeah you know what? The public doesn’t like that very much.”