Senate Republicans Should Not Rush to Re-Elect Thune as Minority Leader After Midterm Defeat
Source: M.D. Kittle. "Electing John Thune Minority Leader Would Be 'Rewarding Failure'." November 9, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that Senate Republicans shouldn't hurry to keep John Thune as their leader after a bad election loss. He says Thune failed to pass the party's top priorities and doesn't accept blame, so re-electing him would reward failure. The author wants the vote delayed so senators can discuss what went wrong and judge candidates on how they lead in the coming weeks.
Conclusion
Senate Republicans should not quickly elect John Thune as Minority Leader; doing so would reward failure, and leadership elections should be delayed until the party has seriously evaluated what went wrong and how candidates intend to lead.
Premises
- Thune led Senate Republicans to a stunning midterm defeat in which the GOP lost control of the Senate and House.
- Under Thune's leadership, the Senate failed to pass key priorities such as the SAVE Act and SAVE America Act, and did not fully deliver the Trump agenda that grassroots voters backed in 2024.
- These failures contributed to conservative voters staying home, which helped cause the electoral loss.
- Thune's defenders and Thune himself deny responsibility, which shows he is out of touch with the party's voters and has not learned from the defeat.
- Senate GOP rules require leadership elections only between January 3 and January 10, so there is no procedural need to rush, and the final membership of the conference is not yet known.
- Quickly re-electing the same leadership would signal that Republicans learned nothing from the rejection, while a delay would allow serious discussion of leadership plans and let the senators assess candidates by how they lead during the lame-duck session.
Assumptions
- Party leaders should be held accountable for electoral outcomes, and a major loss warrants a change in leadership.
- Thune's leadership, rather than other factors (national environment, candidate quality, the president's policies, foreign policy), was a significant cause of the defeat.
- Passing the SAVE Act and the Trump agenda was feasible given Senate rules and the filibuster, so failure reflects a lack of will rather than structural obstacles.
- The preferences of the grassroots and Trump-aligned conservatives should guide the selection of Senate leadership.
- A delay in leadership elections carries little cost and would improve the quality of the decision.