Senate GOP re-elects John Thune as leader despite calls for change after midterm losses

WASHINGTON, DC: Senate Republicans on Tuesday, November 10, re-elected Senator John Thune to a second two-year term as their conference leader following an hours-long meeting marked by disagreements over the party’s midterm election losses.

Thune faced no challenger and was elected by acclamation, despite calls from a group of Republican senators to postpone the vote and reconsider the party’s leadership.

Republicans also re-elected John Barrasso as whip and Tom Cotton as conference chair.

Senate Republicans reject calls to delay John Thune vote

The meeting was the first gathering of Senate Republicans since the party lost at least seven seats in last week’s midterm elections.

When the new Congress convenes on January 3 next year, Thune is expected to lead a Republican minority of no more than 46 senators.

Before the leadership vote, senators voted 31-15 to proceed with the election rather than delay it. The meeting, initially expected to last a few hours, continued throughout the day after Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin threatened to leave if the conference went ahead with the vote.

Johnson subsequently walked out after the motion to proceed passed.

Johnson was joined by several Republicans, including senators Rick Scott, Mike Lee, Ted Budd, John Kennedy, Jim Banks and Dave McCormick, in seeking a delay.

They argued that the party should first assess the election results and hear Thune’s plans for the remaining weeks of the current Congress.

Johnson said the party should not continue with business as usual after the losses. “I simply won’t participate in business as usual,” he wrote on X on Monday evening. “An election defeat of this magnitude demands change.”

Senator Jim Justice acknowledged that there was no clear alternative to Thune but questioned whether the same leadership should remain in place following the election results.

“There is a legitimate argument that if we lost as badly as we lost, why would we continue on with the same leadership?”

Senator Josh Hawley also called for a change in direction, criticising Republican leaders for failing to address rising gas and healthcare costs before the election.

“If you don’t think after losing seven Senate seats, minimum, that we need to change course, I don’t know what planet you’re on,” Hawley said. “It’s easy to blame other people but we need to look at what happened here.”

John Thune blames Iran war for GOP losses

Defending his record, Thune pointed to the passage of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act last summer, which he described as one of the most consequential pieces of legislation of his congressional career.

“As I look back on the last couple of years, my question is what would you have me do differently?” he asked.

“I think we came out of it as well as could have been expected and got a lot of stuff done. Last summer, that bill, in my view, in my time in Congress, is the most consequential piece of legislation I’ve worked on that had a lot of new ideas,” he said, citing new tax policy and fiscal reform.

Thune attributed the election losses to several political factors, including the economy, inflation, fuel prices and the Iran war.

“If you believe the exit polls, it was the war, it was the economy, it was inflation, it was fuel prices, and I think that’s what the election was about,” he said.