Electing John Thune Minority Leader Would Be ‘Rewarding Failure’

A handful of Republican senators have at least attempted to slow the coronation train for failed Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D. 

The South Dakota Republican announced shortly after the GOP got its brains beat out in Tuesday’s midterm that since he was so successful in losing the majority, he would very much like to lead Senate Republicans as a significantly diminished minority. Thune and his swamp buddies moved quickly to try to secure their leadership positions, calling conference elections for Tuesday — exactly one week after the party lost control of the House and Senate in the blue trouncing. 

“I don’t think any rational, honest person [could] blame John Thune for any of this,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., told reporters last week. Thune’s Dakota buddy is wrong. Very wrong. 

“I saw a report that says Senator John Thune is gliding into the Senate Minority Leader role,” Alex Bruesewitz, adviser to President Donald Trump, wrote on X. “Why do Hill Republicans insist on rewarding failure? He’s not exactly in touch with the interests of Republican voters,” he continued. “Perhaps it’s time to give someone else a chance?”

‘Political Malpractice’

Sen. Ron Johnson reportedly has secured the five signatures needed from his Republican colleagues to slow down the rush to crown Thune Republican leader again. 

In a letter to be sent Monday to Senate Republican Conference Chairman Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), the Wisconsin Republican asserts Tuesday’s “stunning defeat” needs more deliberation from Republicans before rolling on with the status quo. 

“We need to have serious discussions within our conference as to what we can do to improve the outcome in 2028,” Johnson and like-minded colleagues wrote, according to multiple media reports. 

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

As Johnson rightly pointed out, Republican senators don’t even know how many members they’ll have in their conference. As of Sunday night, extremely tight races in Alaska and Mississippi had yet to be called.

Thune critics, Sens. John Kennedy, R-La., Mike Lee, R-Utah, Rick Scott., Fla., and Dave McCormick, R-Penn., have each said publicly that they back Johnson in the effort. 

“All Republican senators should support this effort,” Lee urged in a post on X. “No need to rush into leadership elections before discussing what happened and how best to move forward.”

The Utah senator included in a post Senate GOP rules which state that a Republican Party Conference to elect officers “shall be held” within one week after the beginning of each Congress — not one week after a shellacking at the polls. While Lee notes the conferences have often been held earlier, as they were following the 2024 election, “perhaps Senate Republicans should assess leadership candidates based on how they lead the conference over the next few weeks while we still have the majority—especially while the full membership of the next conference is still being determined.”

‘You Did Nothing’

Thune’s delusion appears to know no bounds. In a social media post, the majority leader insisted that “Senate Republicans have put up a strong record of accomplishment” over the past two years. 

Election integrity warrior Cleta Mitchell begged to differ, pointing to Thune’s weak efforts in moving the extremely popular SAVE Act and its successor, the SAVE America Act. The bills would require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote and photo identification to vote in U.S. elections. 

“No. You didn’t. You are absolutely 100% wrong. You did nothing of the sort. @NRSC Senate Republicans under YOUR ‘leadership’ did nothing. Nothing,” Mitchell wrote in response to Thune’s assessment. 

“And you BERATED @BasedMikeLee for trying to get you to work full weeks, to try to pass the SAVE America Act. Or to work a weekend sometime. Or not to recess for weeks in March and then again recess for a month in August. You and your fellow GOP Senators told him that nobody cared about the SAVE America Act. That he needed to sit down and shut up,” Mitchell, head of the Election Integrity Network, wrote. 

Many conservative voters sat on the sidelines this election cycle in no small part thanks to the Senate’s many failures to pass the Trump agenda the grassroots voted for in 2024. Thune blamed “Democrat obstruction” at every turn. He failed to note the obstructionist RINOs in his own party, several of whom have been sent packing after Tuesday’s blowout. 

The grassroots are watching. If what’s left of the right side of the Senate aisle saves current leadership, it will send a huge signal that Republicans in power learned nothing from the electoral rejection they’ve just suffered. It will communicate that in its current form, the GOP is not a party worth saving. 

“The Senate has 2 months to pass the SAVE act and approve all of the President’s judicial nominations. No vacations, and no doggie birthday parades!” one dissatisfied commenter wrote on Sen. John Kennedy’s Facebook page. 

‘The Next Two Years Will be Bleak’ 

Mike Davis, founder and president of the Article III Project, laid out the math. Thune and crew need to confirm 23 judges, four for the circuit courts and 19 for the district courts, before a radical Democrat Party takes control on Jan. 3. Incoming Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, (Mr. “You won’t know what hit you”) will block any confirmation to the court of appeals, and will likely ice Trump’s district court nominations. 

“Senate Republicans either finish the judicial job now, or they leave these seats open for the left if Democrats win back the White House in 2028,” Davis wrote. “Appellate courts are the most consequential. They get the final word in the vast majority of cases. The Supreme Court grants only about 1% of all petitions for review. For nearly every litigant in federal court in America, the circuit court is the last stop.”

The left, Davis argues, can’t play the higher ground card on the issue. Democrats wrote the playbook on ramming through as many federal judges as they could in their 2024 lame duck session. As Davis noted, then-Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Richard Durbin, D-Illinois, “ruthlessly” filled the courts with leftist judges, some who went on to serve as the left’s unconstitutional “resistance movement” against executive branch policy. 

“The next two years will be bleak for judicial nominees, and bleak in plenty of other ways. The next two months must be bright. Confirming these outstanding judges will be the lasting legacy of these outgoing senators,” Davis wrote. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.