Establishment Trump-Critic John Thune Elected as Senate Majority Leader

In a secret vote Wednesday, Senate Republicans selected Trump critic Sen. John Thune of South Dakota to be their leader in the next Congress, replacing outgoing leader Mitch McConnell.

Thune, the moderate Senate Republican whip, ran against two other senators: John Cornyn of Texas and Rick Scott of Florida, who was endorsed by President-Elect Trump and was the favorite among Trump supporters.

Scott was eliminated after the first round of voting, with “23 for Thune, 15 for Cornyn and 13 for Scott,” according to NBC News. In the second round, Thune reportedly won by a vote of 29 to 24.

Thune, first elected to the Senate in 2004, has climbed his way up the leadership ladder, previously serving as chair of the Republican conference and chairing the Commerce Committee before ascending to the position of whip in 2019.

Thune ran for leader on a platform of carrying out President-elect Donald Trump’s agenda, although the two men have not always seen eye to eye: Thune rejected Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen from him.

“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,” Thune said in a statement. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”

Mitch McConnell is stepping down after a historic 18-year tenure as Republican Senate leader.

“As Congress returns to Washington, we must prepare the Senate to advance [Trump’s] agenda legislatively and ensure that the president-elect can hit the ground running with his appointees confirmed as soon as possible,” Thune wrote in an op-ed for FoxNews.com. “The Senate Republican majority will work with President Trump to ensure the Senate calendar allows us to confirm his nominees and pass our shared agenda as quickly and as efficiently as possible.”

Thune, who is considered inside the beltway as an “institutionalist,” is a reliable vote for massive spending bills, including repeated Ukraine War funding bills.

“America cannot retreat from the world stage,” he said in March during a PBS News Hour interview.  “American leadership is desperately needed, now more than I think any time in recent history, and we need to make sure that Ukraine has the weaponry and the resources that it needs to defeat the Russians. Because, if we’re not sending them American weapons, and they succeed in Ukraine, and they go into a — roll into a NATO country, then we’re going to be sending American sons and daughters.”

Last year, Thune expressed concern about Trump’s impact on down ballot races.

“I’m hoping we get other options [than Trump],” he said. “People are going to have to decide whether they want to deal with all the [Trump] drama. If you look at the record, in 2018, 2020, and 2022, when he’s the issue, we lose. And so I would rather have the issue be Biden and his policies. And I think the way that you do that is you get a different nominee, which is why I endorsed somebody else.”

The Heritage Foundation gave Thune an abysmal 37 percent score for the last Senate session in its conservatism index. He has a lifetime score of 62 percent.