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Sen Majority Whip Sen. John Thune, left, and Sen. John Cornyn, right, are in a position to become the Senate majority leader, but another person in consideration is Sen. Rick Scott, center.
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Sen Majority Whip Sen. John Thune, left, and Sen. John Cornyn, right, are in a position to become the Senate majority leader, but another person in consideration is Sen. Rick Scott, center. (Samuel Corum / Getty Images ; Jason Koerner / Getty Images ; Anna Moneymaker / Getty Images)

Everything You Need to Know About Major GOP Senate Battle Brewing

 By C. Douglas Golden  November 11, 2024 at 1:29pm
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Last week’s election was supposed to be a decisive nail in the coffin for neoconservatives and RINOs everywhere.

Donald Trump won and won big, at least by the expectations going in — both in the Electoral College and the popular vote. Not only that, but the Senate is firmly in GOP control and, when everything shakes out, the Republicans are expected to maintain control in the House of Representatives.

Yet, what if I told you that, in the most important election still to come, the GOP establishment is favored to prevail? Because that’s exactly what could happen this week when the Republican Senate caucus votes on a new majority leader.

As you may remember, current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who is serving out what he promises will be his final term, announced that he would step down as party leader earlier this year.

McConnell, 82, has faced a number of health scares over the past few years, including multiple occasions of freezing up during media briefings.

The frontrunners to replace McConnell have been known as “The Johns”: Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and John Thune of North Dakota.

As senators, there’s nothing especially wrong with Cornyn or Thune, but Republicans are picking the man who will lead the party in the upper chamber — which handles judicial and administrative appointments, and will be charged with safeguarding the filibuster — which means that someone who’s “just acceptable” taking the reins after a triumphal election cycle would be a bit anticlimactic.

Moreover, both are pretty much in the mold of McConnell, whose tenure as leader has been unduly popular with the Democrats in the Senate for all the wrong reasons.

“Cornyn and Thune are known for their close relationships with McConnell, who has led the Senate Republican Conference since 2007 — making him the longest-serving Senate party leader in U.S. history,” The Washington Post noted.

“Thune, 63, has been in the Senate since 2005 and is the Senate minority whip — the No. 2 Republican in the Senate. Cornyn, 72, served as whip before Thune and has been in the chamber since 2002.”

There’s a third option, however, and it’s the man who challenged Sen. McConnell the last time around for the leadership spot: Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, who’s less concerned with going along to get along and more concerned with getting the Trump agenda through.

While Scott lost the 2022 leadership election and was considered a long-shot this time around, things are changing quickly in the run-up to Wednesday’s vote. Here’s what you need to know about and why:

The issue of recess appointments will loom large over the race for majority leader.

President-elect Trump has made it clear that he wants the next Senate majority leader to support so-called “recess appointments” — appointments made for nominees while the Senate is in recess, which the minority party often tries to block.

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This isn’t a new issue, as Trump noted on social media Sunday.

“Any Republican Senator seeking the coveted LEADERSHIP position in the United States Senate must agree to Recess Appointments (in the Senate!), without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner,” Trump said on X.

“Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more. This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”

“Trump’s demand for recess appointments resurfaces a decades-old clash between presidents and Capitol Hill leaders — one in which the Supreme Court has previously weighed in favor of the Senate’s powers,” CNN noted.

“Both chambers have to pass a resolution to go into recess, which would give Senate Democrats an opportunity to filibuster the resolution and essentially block its passage. During Trump’s first term, for example, he was blocked by the Senate from using recess appointments to replace then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions.

“But the incoming Senate GOP leader backing the idea would be a notable support for expansion of presidential power, even for a leader in the same party as the president-elect. In past decades, senators of both parties have been skeptical of the practice.”

However, while both Cornyn and Thune have signaled that they’re open to the idea, Scott has been much more enthusiastic in backing recess appointments: “100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible,” he said on X.

Thune and Cornyn have been lukewarm on the president-elect in the past.

After a resounding victory in the electoral and popular (!) vote, the last thing you want to surface on social media is video clips and old posts saying that Donald Trump might not have been the best choice and/or was unelectable. And — wouldn’t you know it? — there are no shortage of those from both Cornyn and Thune showing up on X.

Aside from the fact that prognostication does not seem to be the strong point of either one of these gentlemen, one can intuit a pattern that seems an awful lot more like wishful thinking than dispassionate analysis. Scott, meanwhile, has been a consistent Trump ally. It’s not hard to do the math in terms of which one would have a better working relationship with the White House.

Those responsible for the 2024 victory want Scott, as well.

It probably comes as no surprise, but it bears stating: The people who were responsible for engineering the greatest political comeback in American history aren’t particularly enthused about the possibility of either of the Johns being the next majority leader.

Charlie Kirk of Turning Point USA — the man responsible, in large part, for Trump’s vastly underrated ground game — made it clear that he thinks the American people didn’t vote for another establishment rubber stamp in the Senate leadership.

“The people who just gave Donald Trump a sweeping mandate do not want Thune or Cornyn to lead the US Senate. They want Rick Scott. It’s very clear,” he wrote in a Saturday post.

Donald Trump Jr. is also in the Scott camp, saying that “MAGA must do everything in our power to stop either of these two RINOs from ever becoming Senate Leader!”

Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, another outspoken critic of the party establishment, has also publicly thrown his support behind Scott:

And then there’s some car company CEO guy who also thinks Scott is the way to go, too:

But does Scott have the votes?

Sure, Scott easily won re-election in Florida in a race that the Democrats initially thought they had a chance in, beating Debbie Mucarsel-Powell by almost 13 points. While this election is trending his way, it’s going to be an uphill battle.

Benny Johnson of Turning Point USA has been posting regularly about insider sentiment going into Wednesday’s secret ballot. While some Republican senators are reportedly unhappy with Cornyn and Thune as favorites, they remain favorites nonetheless.

“Thune and Cornyn have been trained like dogs by McConnell. They’ll do as they’re told and come when called. McConnell will still be in charge with them. Scott is the only option,” one “prominent Republican Senator” told Johnson, as per a Saturday report.

On Sunday night, Johnson posted what he said was an “internal whip-count” — i.e., the number of votes each camp thinks they’ve managed to drum up — for the leadership position. Thune was in the lead with 24, with Cornyn at 18 and Scott at 11.

However, an hour and a half later, he posted an update reporting that he’d “received a call from an impeccably high-profile source confirming the publication of this list is MOVING votes to Rick Scott in real-time.”

“Keep the pressure up,” Johnson said. “This is how we restore power to the people.”

The question is whether the pressure will be enough. Despite his advanced age, McConnell still holds significant sway over the caucus, and it’s clear he doesn’t favor Scott. Furthermore, both Cornyn and Thune have been the favorites for the position for months now, making it difficult for a spoiler to make last-minute inroads against the party establishment.

However, given the historic nature of Trump’s victory — and the direction that his supporters seem to be trending in this race — anything is possible.

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C. Douglas Golden
Contributor, Commentary
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014.
C. Douglas Golden is a writer who splits his time between the United States and Southeast Asia. Specializing in political commentary and world affairs, he's written for Conservative Tribune and The Western Journal since 2014. Aside from politics, he enjoys spending time with his wife, literature (especially British comic novels and modern Japanese lit), indie rock, coffee, Formula One and football (of both American and world varieties).
Birthplace
Morristown, New Jersey
Education
Catholic University of America
Languages Spoken
English, Spanish
Topics of Expertise
American Politics, World Politics, Culture




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