Senate Republicans suspend leadership election amid demands for ‘a plan’ from John Thune

Senate Republicans on Tuesday paused their meeting to elect leaders after Senate conservatives demanded “a plan” for the lame-duck session and the next Congress when Democrats will be in the majority.

Republican senators streamed out of the Old Senate Chamber after huddling in the historic room for nearly two hours to discuss their future after losing at least seven seats in last week’s election.

“We’re still discussing. We ran out of time,” Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) told reporters after senators broke up the meeting.

Johnson said Republican senators would reconvene at 2 p.m. to resume their discussion about the future leadership of the conference.

Thune and other members of his team are pressing for GOP colleagues to vote today on re-electing him as Senate Republican leader but they want to give members of the conference all the time they need to voice their views.

Senate Steering Committee Chairman Rick Scott (R-Fla.) said he and several other Republican colleagues are demanding a clear roadmap from Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-S.D.) about how he will handle the rest of the lame-duck session and the incoming Senate and House Democratic majorities in 2027 and beyond.

He said that it’s yet to be decided whether the leadership vote will take place Tuesday afternoon.

“We haven’t decided whether it’s going to be delayed. We had a conversation and more people wanted to speak,” he said.

Scott spoke during the private session and urged his colleagues to adopt a plan before electing a new leadership team, citing his years of executive leadership in the business world.

“I said I’m a business guy. … I started a lot of businesses, I built a lot of businesses, I turned around a lot of businesses. The first thing is you have a plan of what you want to accomplish then you put together a management team,” he said.

“I want to hear a plan. I’ve been up here eight years, I’ve never heard a plan in a year,” he said. “We have 55 days until the Democrats take over. I said so I want to know what we’re going to do between now and then to get stuff done.”

A third Republican senator who requested anonymity described the morning meeting as a “lively discussion” and said Republican colleagues want to hear “a plan” from Thune for the lame-duck session before voting to re-elect him as leader.