As displeasure with current Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., rises following the GOP’s poor midterm election results, several Senate Republicans are calling for the leadership elections scheduled for next week to be postponed.
Sens. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rick Scott, R-Fla., urged colleagues to approve delaying the party’s leadership elections, which are currently slated for Wednesday morning, in a letter that Politico was able to receive.
Sens. Josh Hawley, R-Arkansas, Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Marco Rubio, R-Florida, are among the other GOP senators who have called for the leadership elections to be postponed.
Eric Schmitt, who was just elected to Missouri’s other Senate seat, and Hawley have publicly expressed support for replacing McConnell.
Scott, the powerful National Republican Senatorial Committee’s chairman, and McConnell have frequently disagreed. In a video, he declared his intention to take on McConnell for the leadership post, but on Friday, he changed his mind as it remained unclear whether Republicans would win Senate majorities.
McConnell has come under fire for declining to donate to candidates who made no commitment to support him as the party’s nominee for Senate leadership.
Blake Masters in Arizona, who was outspent 5-to-1 by incumbent Democrat Sen. Mark Kelly, who was proclaimed the winner in the election on Friday, was one of the candidates McConnell withdrew funds from.
In the final weeks of the contest, McConnell’s Senate campaign division also withheld funding from Don Bolduc of New Hampshire, who lost to incumbent Sen. Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.
With Kelly’s victory in Arizona, the race for party control of the Senate now depends on the results of two runoff elections: one in Georgia between incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock, D-Ga., and Republican Herschel Walker, and another in Nevada between GOP candidate Adam Laxalt and incumbent Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, D-Nev., which is currently too close to call.
The senators wrote in the letter, “We are all sad that a red wave did not materialize, and there are numerous reasons it did not.
In our conference, we need to have meaningful discussions about why and what we can do to increase our chances in 2024.
The Senate GOP leadership slate is anticipated to remain the same, with McConnell remaining as a leader, Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., remaining as a whip, Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo., remaining as conference chair, Sen. Joni Ernst, R-Iowa, remaining as chair of the policy committee, Sen. Shelley Moore Capito, R-W.Va., remaining as conference vice chair, and Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont.
On the other hand, Johnson and Lee have frequently disagreed with McConnell’s leadership of the Senate Republicans. Johnson received $25 million from the Senate Leadership Fund, and both senators were re-elected.
Speaking out against the current leadership race, Rubio said the party should ensure those running for the top spot are “really committed to fighting for the goals and values of the working Americans.”
On the other hand, Cruz asserted that holding elections before the outcome of the Warnock-Walker runoff “makes no sense.”
Conservative Club for Growth head and former congressman David McIntosh said he does not anticipate a change in leadership but that McConnell’s influence as a leader might be weakened.
