Ron Johnson threatens walkout of Senate GOP leadership election

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) pledged to walk out of the room if his Republican colleagues proceed with leadership elections on Tuesday, after calling a conference to discuss the party’s direction following significant losses for the GOP in the midterm elections.

“If you hold the election, I’ll leave the room,” he told the Washington Examiner in a Monday interview. “I’m not going to participate in elections for leadership tomorrow.”

To delay internal elections, which are cast by secret ballot, Johnson will need support from a majority of the Senate GOP conference.

The Wisconsin Republican has been floated as a potential replacement for Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) for when Democrats take control of the Senate in January, as some conservatives air frustration with Thune’s leadership .

Johnson, who has denied his interest in leadership in the past, again shot down the prospect on Monday, but he did not definitively rule it out.

“I don’t think so,” he told the Examiner. “It’s not my intention. I don’t want to be leader.”

The senator added that his request for a conference meeting was not a “hostile act” and was only intended to give the GOP the time to assess whether they wanted a change in leadership.

“We all like John Thune. We like him, OK?” Johnson said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about him, but again, at some point in time, our supporters absolutely believe we have to hold people accountable, and probably are looking for a new face, or new faces.”

Thune told reporters Monday he was anticipating a “very engaged conversation” at the Tuesday conference meeting.

“We’ll see where it goes from there, but, yeah, I’m running for leader, and I think it’s important that we have that discussion, and we will,” he said, according to Bloomberg .

No other Republican senator has publicly expressed interest in challenging Thune in a leadership contest. But others, including Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.), have also pressed their GOP colleagues to delay the leadership vote.

Johnson also criticized President Trump’s midterm strategy in his Examiner interview, after Republicans lost key races in red states and control of both chambers of Congress in the election.

“I think there’s plenty of blame to go around,” he said. “But I mean, the president was the one out there saying, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot,’ and people did, and we see the result.”