Republicans Choose Their Congressional Leaders Tuesday: Thune Unopposed, Scalise and Jordan Locked in a Tight House Race
One week after the defeat that cost them both chambers, Senate and House Republicans vote by secret ballot today on who leads the minority — a formality in the Senate, a genuine contest in the House.
WASHINGTON — One week after the election defeat that ended their majorities, Republicans in Congress were set on Tuesday to decide who will lead their party next year when Democrats take over the Senate and the House of Representatives, Reuters reported.
In the Senate the answer looks settled. Majority Leader John Thune appeared to face no challengers to his bid to become minority leader in January, even as a group of hardline Republican senators pressed to delay the leadership elections in favor of a post-mortem session on the defeat. Thune told reporters on Monday that Republicans would talk about the election losses before moving forward: 'I'm running for leader, but I think it's important that we have that discussion. And we will, and everyone will have a chance to weigh in, and then we'll hopefully move forward,' he said.
The House race is real. Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan were locked in a tight race for minority leader, after Speaker Mike Johnson signaled he had no interest in remaining at the Republican helm and President Donald Trump said he would not get involved. Johnson, who presided over a fractious majority, predicted 'chaos' in the House with Democrats in charge: 'I'm sorry that voters made the wrong choice,' the Louisiana Republican said. 'If we had kept the majority, we would stay on course.'
The elections, settled by secret ballots in the Capitol, will determine what role Republicans intend to play as the minority party during the final two years of Trump's presidency. Democrats won at least 54 of the Senate's 100 seats and at least 252 of the House's 435 seats — but they will still need Republican support for most Senate legislation, where the filibuster requires 60 votes, and their majorities fall short of the two-thirds needed to override a veto. Thune, meanwhile, carries his own exposure into the vote: Trump's MAGA supporters blame him for not pursuing the president's policies more aggressively before the election, including the sweeping federal election restrictions Trump sought.
