WASHINGTON (AP) — In the first seriously contested Senate Republican leadership election in decades, three senators are vying to replace longtime GOP leader Mitch McConnell when he leaves office early next year and Republicans retake the Senate majority.
South Dakota Sen. John Thune, Texas Sen. John Cornyn and Florida Sen. Rick Scott fought fiercely to win the support of their colleagues in Wednesday’s secret ballot. All three are trying to convince their colleagues that they have President-elect Donald Trump’s ear and will be the best person to carry out his agenda.
They are also trying to distance themselves from McConnell, saying they would give rank-and-file senators more power and be more communicative.
It’s not clear who will win or whether there will be multiple rounds of voting before a winner is chosen.
A look at the three candidates:
SEN. JOHN THUNE
Thune, 63, defeated then-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle in 2004 after arguing on the campaign trail that Daschle had lost his South Dakota roots during his years at the Democratic helm. Now Thune is running to become majority leader himself.
Thune is a popular and respected communicator and was considered a frontrunner for most of the year. He is currently the second-largest Republican in the Senate and took over from McConnell for a few weeks last year when he was on medical leave. He is also a former chairman of the Senate Commerce Committee.
As he prepared to run for leadership, Thune spent much of the year campaigning for his colleagues. According to his aides, he raised more than $31 million for Senate Republicans this cycle, including a $4 million transfer from his own campaign accounts to the Senate’s main campaign division.
A possible burden for Thune is his previously complex relationship with Trump. Thune was highly critical of the then-President as he sought to overturn his election defeat in 2020 and after the attack on the Capitol by Trump’s supporters on January 6, 2021. Thune said at the time that Trump’s efforts to disrupt the peaceful transfer of power were “inexcusable.”
This year, however, Thune and Trump spoke frequently by phone and Thune visited the then-GOP candidate at his home in Florida. Thune told The Associated Press over the summer that he viewed their potential relationship as a professional relationship. If both win their elections, Thune said, “we have a job to do.”
IT IS. JOHN CORNYS
Like Thune, Cornyn is a popular and respected member of the Senate GOP conference. A former attorney general of Texas and a member of the state Supreme Court, he served primarily on the Senate Judiciary Committee. He also served as McConnell’s No. 2, the job Thune now holds, for six years before being temporarily fired from the job.
Cornyn, 72, has also spent much of the year courting his colleagues one by one and fundraising for them across the country. He has long been one of the Senate’s top fundraisers, and his aides say he has raised more than $400 million for party candidates in his 22 years in office.
In 2022, after a gunman stormed a Texas elementary school and killed 19 children and two teachers, Cornyn was tapped by McConnell to lead the GOP in gun control negotiations with Democrats. The bill passed over the summer tightened background checks for buyers under 21, increased prosecutions for unlicensed gun sellers and allocated millions of dollars to mental health care for adolescent people. While Cornyn has praised his work on gun control legislation, it could cost him some votes among the most conservative members of the conference.
Cornyn has also had some tensions with Trump in the past, including his early suggestions that Trump might not be the best GOP candidate to run in 2024. But he also has smoothed relations with the fresh president, meeting him while he was in Texas campaigning and visiting him in Florida.
SEN. RICK SCOTT
While Thune and Cornyn both have leadership experience and have spent most of the year systematically trying to woo individual senators, Scott is running a different kind of campaign. And he believes he has one key advantage: his relationship with Trump.
Scott, a former two-term Florida governor and successful businessman, was re-elected to a second term in the Senate last week, defeating Democrat Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by more than 10 points. He is a long-time supporter of the fresh president and has positioned himself as a robust ally. Scott traveled to New York to support Trump during the hush money trial earlier this year and has openly stated that he wants Trump to support him.
He gained widespread support on social media over the weekend as he was endorsed by people close to Trump, including Elon Musk. But Trump has not commented on the Senate contest.
It’s unclear whether Scott’s outside approach could win him more support in the club-packed Senate. He won 10 votes while challenging McConnell for the post in 2022, and he will try to improve on that number in the first round of voting on Wednesday.
Scott, 71, is among a growing group of right-wing senators who have criticized McConnell’s tenure and advocated for more power for individual members. Several senators in that group, including Utah Sen. Mike Lee and Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, have endorsed him, arguing that his business experience and relationship with Trump should make him a better candidate.
