USAupdated 1h ago3 min read
Mike Lee Joins Ron Johnson Push to Delay Senate GOP Leadership Elections
“That won’t delay Majority Leader John Thune’s leadership election”
“If they don’t get enough support, the senators will cast their ballots”
This article is an automated aggregation of coverage from news outlets. Our editorials offer in-depth analysis curated by the NewsCord team.
Mike Lee joins bid to delay leadership elections pending postmortem of midterms Ron Johnson and five others sign letter urging meeting before voting
Save coverage image
Delay bid after GOP losses
Sen. Mike Lee joined a push to delay Senate Republican conference leadership elections after Democrats flipped control of both chambers of Congress, ending total Republican control of Washington.
“A week ago, we had the worst election results in decades.”
Senate Republicans sent a letter requesting that leadership elections be postponed until they hold a postmortem of last week’s elections, and the letter was led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin with five signers including Lee, Sen. Rick Scott of Florida, Sen. Ted Budd of North Carolina, and Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana.
Lee said, “Senate Republicans should not rush into leadership elections while two races (and along with them, the composition of our conference) remain unresolved,” and he added, “After last week’s stunning losses, we need to pause long enough to develop a plan to move forward.”
Senate leadership elections were described as tentatively scheduled for Tuesday afternoon during Republicans’ weekly conference meeting, while other Republicans argued Tuesday was “too soon” to push ahead with elections.
Sen. Dave McCormick said the party needed time because “A week ago, we had the worst election results in decades,” and he urged Republicans not to move forward with internal leadership elections as scheduled on Tuesday.
Letters, signatures, and quotes
Sen. Ron Johnson sent a letter to Senate Conference Chair Tom Cotton, and the letter sought a delay of Tuesday’s leadership contest while the conference held a discussion about strategy and what kind of collaborative government model to adopt.
Johnson argued in the letter that the election should be postponed “until we all have the chance to hear the presidential candidates about what kind of collaborative government model we should adopt,” and he also wrote that “Holding elections to choose leaders without holding an in-depth debate” would be “political negligence.”
The Hill described McCormick’s position as endorsing the call to delay, quoting McCormick’s statement that “We need leadership in place fast, but Tuesday is too soon.”
Roll Call reported that under conference rules, five signatures were required to force a special conference meeting, and it said Johnson’s letter included signatures from Sens. Mike Lee, Ted Budd, Rick Scott, and John Kennedy.
Semafor said Johnson’s letter would not delay Majority Leader John Thune’s leadership election, but it would force a debate about party leadership and could eventually lead to a vote on whether to delay.
What is at stake next
The dispute over timing centers on who leads the Republican Senate conference after Democrats flipped the chamber, with the leadership election scheduled for Tuesday morning and Majority Leader John Thune expected to run for another term as the Republican minority leader. Deseret News said Thune still intends to run for the party’s top leadership position, and it reported that the group of Republicans had not openly challenged Thune, even as their request signaled internal restlessness after the party’s losses. Fox News said the Senate Democrats flipped the chamber by winning 54 seats, and it added that the figure could rise depending on results in Mississippi and Alaska.
Inquirer reported that two races, in Alaska and Mississippi, had not yet been called on Monday, and it said that if Democratic nominees kept their leads, their party would enter 2027 with a 56-44 majority. Semafor said the lame-duck session begins with a procedural vote on a permitting reform bill and that, barring a delay, Senate Republican leadership elections were scheduled to take place at 9 am on Tuesday.