Senate GOP rebels move to delay leadership vote, demand reckoning after midterm disaster
Last week’s pummeling on Election Night has a cohort of Senate Republicans wanting to take stock as lawmakers return to Washington, D.C.The Senate GOP is slated to hold its leadership...
By Fox News · Fox News
Last week’s pummeling on Election Night has a cohort of Senate Republicans wanting to take stock as lawmakers return to Washington, D.C. The Senate GOP is slated to hold its leadership elections Tuesday morning, where Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., is expected to seek another term as top Republican. But a small group led by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., wants to delay the leadership elections to debrief after last week’s stunning losses and chart a path forward heading into the minority. Senate Democrats flipped the chamber by clinching 54 seats, and that number could grow depending on the outcomes in Mississippi and Alaska. THE HITCHHIKER’S GUIDE TO WHAT HAPPENS NEXT ON CAPITOL HILL Johnson, in a letter obtained by Fox News Digital to Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., the conference chair for the Senate GOP, argued the election should be delayed "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." "Tuesday's result was a stunning defeat, and there are multiple reasons for it," Johnson wrote. "We need to have serious discussions within our conference as to what we can do to improve the outcome in 2028." "Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice," he continued. "It is certainly not the way leadership elections should be conducted in the world's greatest deliberative body." GOP EYES SENATE COMEBACK AFTER DEMOCRATIC BLOODBATH, BUT ANOTHER POLITICAL NIGHTMARE COULD AWAIT The Senate GOP’s rules do allow for the consideration of such a delay, as long as Johnson can get five signatures on his letter, and he did, securing Sens. Rick Scott, R-Fla., John Kennedy, R-La., Ted Budd, R-N.C., and Mike Lee, R-Utah, as his base of support. "We first need…