Republicans Lost Seven Senate Seats. Five GOP Senators Now Want Thune’s Leadership Vote Delayed.

A week ago, Republicans lost at least seven Senate seats and handed Democrats the majority. On Tuesday morning, the same Senate Republicans are scheduled to walk into the Old Senate Chamber and re-elect their leadership team, with Majority Leader John Thune of South Dakota running unopposed.

A growing group of conservatives says that gets things backwards. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin wants the vote put off until Republicans talk through what went wrong, and as of Sunday night five senators had publicly backed the idea: Johnson, Mike Lee of Utah, Rick Scott of Florida, John Kennedy of Louisiana and, the newest and most surprising name, Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania.

McCormick: “We should not rush it”

McCormick, a first-term senator, posted his statement Sunday evening and said he had already told Thune directly.

“One of the things I learned in business and the Army is that after a failure, you have to start with honesty, transparency, and accountability,” McCormick wrote. “A week ago, we had the worst election results in decades. We need a discussion about what went wrong, how we fix it, what we stand for, and how our agenda must focus on the concerns of the American people.”

“As I’ve shared with Leader Thune, I don’t believe we should move to leadership elections until we have digested and debated the lessons of the midterms and how to move forward,” he added. “We need leadership in place fast, but Tuesday is too soon. I know it’s been the practice to go straight to leadership elections in recent years, but we should not rush it.”

McCormick isn’t asking Thune to step aside, and nobody has announced a challenge. A person familiar with the matter told Axios the elections were still scheduled to go forward Tuesday.

Johnson’s letter

Johnson started circulating his letter on Thursday. Under Senate Republican Conference rules, a written request from five or more senators obliges the Policy Committee chair, Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, to call a meeting of the whole conference, as Just the News explained. Johnson’s office told NBC News on Sunday that the letter now has five Republican signatures.

Sunday night, NBC News reported the text of the letter Johnson plans to send Monday to Conference Chair Tom Cotton of Arkansas. Instead of voting Tuesday morning, he wants senators to use that time to hear “what type of collaborative conference governing model we should adopt and what our strategy will be to counter the emboldened Democrats.”

“Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice,” Johnson wrote. “It is certainly not the way leadership elections should be conducted in the world’s greatest deliberative body.”

Johnson also says the rush is new. “Since 1934, leadership elections have occurred about 40 days after an election,” he posted Saturday. “Since 2006, that timeline has shortened to just nine days. There’s no reason to rush a leadership election — especially after a defeat.”

Who’s with him, and why

Lee was first in, posting Thursday that Republicans had “no business” holding the vote until they’d discussed what happened and knew “who’s going to be in our conference.” That second point is real: Alaska and Mississippi are still counting, with Democrats narrowly ahead in both Senate races, so Republicans don’t yet know how many members they’ll have in January.

Lee also pointed to the conference’s own calendar. “Senate GOP rules contemplate leadership elections occurring between January 3rd & January 10th,” he wrote Saturday, suggesting senators judge candidates “based on how they lead the conference over the next few weeks while we still have the majority.” Later that night he was blunter: “It’s insulting to be asked to re-elect leadership immediately after a truly stunning defeat—without even a whisper from current leadership about plans to move forward.” On Sunday he called McCormick “absolutely right” and said a Tuesday vote “would put the cart before the horse.”

Kennedy made it official Saturday morning. “I have signed Sen. Ron Johnson’s letter to postpone Senate Republican leadership elections next Tuesday,” he posted. Scott, who challenged Thune for leader two years ago, told Fox News that day he would not run again but backed Johnson. “Instead of have an election, the first thing you do is you say, ‘Okay, what are we going to change? We have to change something,’” Scott said, according to the show’s host, Kayleigh McEnany.

Scott also set a price for anyone who wants a leadership job. “I’ve been fighting for over two years to get the SAVE/SAVE America Act, passed in the Senate,” he posted Sunday, referring to the bill requiring proof of citizenship to register to vote. “We have two months to get it done. Every candidate for a leadership job must commit to passing it. Failure is not an option.”

Where Trump stands

President Trump has fought with Thune all year over the filibuster and the stalled SAVE America Act, and after the midterms he blamed the Senate in part. “We had a bad election because of a few things. One thing was not getting things approved in the Senate,” Trump told reporters, as quoted by Axios. But asked Friday whether Thune should stay on, he left it to the senators. “It’s gonna be up to the Republicans. They choose. I don’t choose. They choose.”

What happens next

History favors Thune. A push to delay the leadership vote after the 2022 midterms, led by Marco Rubio, failed in a conference vote, Senate reporter Burgess Everett noted, and calls two years ago to slow Thune’s first election as leader went nowhere. Leadership votes are held behind closed doors by secret ballot, and the winner needs only a simple majority.

But five senators have now said out loud that the conference owes its voters a reckoning before it hands out the top jobs. Johnson’s letter lands on Cotton’s desk Monday. If the conference meets first and still votes Tuesday, Thune will almost certainly be the next Senate minority leader. If it doesn’t, the January window Lee keeps citing is right there in the rules.