Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.) has been elected Senate majority leader, setting the stage for him to replace retiring Sen. Mitch McConnell (Ky.), who has held the top Senate GOP leadership job for the past 18 years.
Thune has served as Senate Republican whip, the No. 2-ranking position in the Senate GOP leadership, since 2019, and largely managed operation of the Senate floor after McConnell suffered a concussion from a fall in 2023.
Thune beat Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) by a vote of 25 to 24, according to two sources familiar with the vote.
Thune led after the first ballot. He won 25 votes while Cornyn won 15 votes and Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) collected 13 votes.
“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” he said in a statement after the vote. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”
Thune is well liked among his Senate Republican colleagues, and his affable, humble approach to managing the conference has earned the trust and confidence of fellow GOP senators.
He announced his intention to run for leader shortly after McConnell said in February that he would retire from GOP leadership at the end of this year.
His main competition for the past eight months of the race has been Cornyn, a formidable fundraiser who served as Senate Republican whip from 2013 to 2019.
Cornyn tried to portray himself in the race as an agent of change, promising to give rank-and-file Republicans more opportunity to debate and amend legislation on the Senate floor.
Thune, however, had many opportunities to work with colleagues over the past six years to help them get votes on amendments and collect political chits along the way, even if some GOP senators felt frustrated from time to time when they couldn’t get a vote on a particular amendment.
Thune promised at a lengthy candidates’ forum with Cornyn and Scott, the third Republican in the leadership race, to give senators more opportunity to amend bills and to strive for more unity in the GOP conference.
He pledged to hold regular meetings with Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) to improve coordination with House Republicans and with Vice President-elect JD Vance to stay in sync with the Trump White House.
He also agreed to host a Senate GOP issues conference in December to discuss strategies for advancing Trump’s agenda and to prioritize bringing regular appropriations bills to the floor in the next Congress to avoid the need to pass another omnibus spending package before Christmas.
GOP senators discussed a variety of topics at the Tuesday forum, including strategy for raising the federal debt limit next year, completing the U.S.-Mexico border wall and proposals to eliminate the Department of Education, according to sources who participated in the meeting.
Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.), who endorsed Thune early in the race, said he pursued votes with a soft touch, asking colleagues for their support without demanding commitments.
“We’ve never asked anybody for commitments as we work our way through. That’s not a fair thing to do, particularly in a secret ballot,” Rounds said. “If they offer a commitment, you take it. And we’ve had really good results in that regard.”
Thune’s allies acknowledged they didn’t know whether he had enough votes to win heading into Wednesday morning’s meeting in the Old Senate Chamber.
The biggest question heading into it was whether President-elect Trump might make a last-minute effort to intervene in the race.
Several of Trump’s most prominent supporters, including Tesla CEO Elon Musk, former Fox News anchor Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., endorsed Scott in the race.
Thune’s rocky past relationship with Trump was one of the biggest obstacles to him winning enough votes to secure the top leadership job.
He crossed swords with Trump in December 2020 when he whipped colleagues to oppose an effort by Trump allies to block the certification of President Biden’s victory in the presidential race.
Thune declared the effort to throw out Biden electors would “go down like a shot dog,” prompting an angry response from Trump, who called him a “RINO” and called for him to face a primary challenge in 2022.
Trump’s threat of political retaliation didn’t amount to much, as Thune easily won reelection.
Thune tried to mend fences with Trump in recent months by visiting his home at Mar-a-Lago in March and toning down any criticism of the GOP presidential nominee when asked about his controversial statements.
Thune got a boost from National Republican Senatorial Committee Chair Steve Daines (Mont.), who formally nominated him for majority leader Wednesday morning.
Daines, who can claim a large share of credit for winning back the Senate majority, told colleagues in the weeks before the vote that he would back Thune.
Rounds, the first senator to publicly endorse Thune, seconded the nomination.
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who backed Scott on the first ballot, tried to convince his colleagues Tuesday to postpone the leadership election until later in November to give Trump and his team more time to weigh in on the race.
“We’re not even in town for 24 hours. I told them, ‘I’m offended by that.’ I think quite honestly that’s outrageous. They’re just trying to jam this down everybody’s throat,” Johnson said of the decision to hold the Senate election less than 24 hours after senators convened again in Washington after the Nov. 5 nationwide election.
After the first round of votes failed to produce a winner, Senate Republicans briefly considered a motion to delay the second round of voting for two hours, but it failed.
Outgoing Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who will be in the minority next year, congratulated Thune on his victory.
“I look forward to working with him. We’ve done many bipartisan things here in the Senate together and I hope that continues,” Schumer said on the Senate floor.
Updated at 12:39 p.m.
