Less than a week after Democrats swept Republicans out of power in both chambers of Congress, a growing number of GOP senators are trying to slam the brakes on their own party’s leadership elections.
Senate Republicans are scheduled to pick their leaders for the next Congress at 9 a.m. ET on Tuesday. But a group of senators led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin sent a letter on Monday asking the conference to hold off, NBC News reported.
“Political malpractice”
“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.”
The letter, addressed to Senate Republican Conference Chair Tom Cotton of Arkansas, was also signed by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Budd of North Carolina, John Kennedy of Louisiana and Rick Scott of Florida, according to NBC News.
Instead of voting Tuesday, the senators proposed using the meeting for a discussion, and asked the conference to “delay holding leadership elections until we all have a chance to hear from leadership candidates as to what type of collaborative conference governing model we should adopt and what our strategy will be to counter the emboldened Democrats.”
More senators join the call
Sen. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania added his voice Sunday night. “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 said.
Sen. Jim Banks of Indiana posted Monday morning that “tomorrow is too soon.” “Our conference needs to sit down and have a frank conversation about where we fell short, what we stand for, and what we’re going to do for the working families who sent us here,” Banks wrote.
Axios reported that McCormick isn’t demanding that Majority Leader John Thune step down, and no one has officially announced a challenge to Thune, who has led the GOP conference since January 2025. Still, the push injects new uncertainty into what had been seen as a foregone conclusion before the party’s midterm defeat.
Will the vote still happen?
For now, Thune and top Republicans plan to go ahead with Tuesday’s elections, according to Punchbowl News, and Axios reported the vote is still scheduled. Postponing it would take the support of a simple majority of the Republican conference.
The fight comes as Congress returns for a lame-duck session with a Dec. 11 government funding deadline looming, and with Senate Republicans, as The Hill reported, angry at President Trump, whom many blame for losing both chambers.