WASHINGTON (The Thursday Times) — Senate Republicans have re-elected John Thune as their leader, keeping the South Dakota senator in charge as the party prepares to hand control of the chamber to the Democrats after heavy losses in last week’s midterm elections.
Thune ran unopposed at a closed-door meeting at the US Capitol on Tuesday, even though some Republican senators had pushed to delay the vote until the party had worked out what went wrong. He will lead the Republican minority in the 120th Congress during the last two years of President Donald Trump’s term.
“I am honored to have their continued trust and support to lead the Senate Republican Conference in the 120th Congress,” Thune said in a statement after the vote.
Calls for ‘soul searching’
Republicans lost at least seven Senate seats in the midterms, with the races in Alaska and Mississippi still uncalled. Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin circulated a letter asking for the leadership vote to be postponed, saying the party needed to do some “real soul searching”.
Johnson conceded that no one had stepped forward to challenge Thune. “That’s part of our problem, who would want the job?” he told reporters. Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri said that “maybe there would be” a challenger had the vote been held later, and questioned the message sent by ratifying the same leadership so quickly.
Thune said the defeat could not be pinned on one issue. “I think in every election, it’s never any one thing,” he said. “I think it was a combination of things and, most importantly, it was the cost of living for the American people.”
He had warned before the vote that rising energy prices were hurting the party, and said in a television interview in September that the war with Iran had “trumped everything else” for voters.
Jordan to lead House Republicans
In the House, Republicans chose Jim Jordan of Ohio as their minority leader, his first post in the party’s leadership. He succeeds Speaker Mike Johnson at the head of the House Republicans, who will also be in the minority when the new Congress meets in January.
Thune will now have to work with a Democratic-controlled Congress if Republicans want to pass any legislation, while a White House that has signalled it will double down on its most contested policies looks ahead to the 2028 elections.
