Will Republicans Install a MAGA Stooge as Senate Majority Leader?

Republicans are selecting their next Senate majority leader on Wednesday, to take power from the increasingly decrepit Mitch McConnell of Kentucky. Will the next GOP leader be a thorn in Trump’s side, as the old-school corporate conservative McConnell occasionally was, or a MAGA fixer, greasing the skids to ram controversial appointees and legislation through the Senate?

The election will offer an early glimpse into official Washington’s view of Trump’s return to power. The ballot is also secret — providing a buffer of anonymity that may embolden the Senate’s holdovers from the days when the Republicans stood for small government, muscular foreign policy, and free trade — rather than mass deportations, deference to Vladimir Putin, and soaring tariffs.

Who Is Out: 

Mitch McConnell

The Kentucky stalwart, 82, has been the GOP leader in the Senate since 2007. Although the men viscerally dislike one another — McConnell was booed at Trump’s 2024 convention — McConnell and Trump were fully aligned on tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and the Republican takeover of the judiciary, in particular the Supreme Court. 

When Trump was first on the ballot, McConnell blocked Barack Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the high court — on the pretext that it had come too close to the election — only to jam through the confirmation of Amy Coney Barrett four years later even closer to the 2020 election. The result was a 6-3 conservative supermajority on the high court that has proven pivotal in overturning Roe v. Wade, and granting presidents sweeping criminal immunity. 

McConnell was probably the last Republican who could have blocked Trump’s political recovery after Jan. 6; but despite declaring Trump “practically and morally responsible” for the Capitol insurrection, McConnell weakly led the Senate GOP in punting on conviction during the second impeachment, which would have disqualified Trump from seeking the presidency again.

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What’s At Stake:

Following last week’s election, Republicans will have a small majority in the Senate, likely 53-47. Two of those votes are Susan Collins of Maine and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska who are perceived as moderates and could potentially withhold consent on extreme nominees. Another vote is a wild card: whomever Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine chooses to replace Vice President-elect J.D. Vance. DeWine recently clashed with Vance and Trump over their racist lies about Haitian immigrants living in Springfield, Ohio, and may not send a MAGA rubber stamp to Washington. 

Clearly anticipating trouble confirming some of his most ideological nominations, Trump has been demanding that the next GOP Senate leader agree to allow him “recess appointments.” These appointments — made when the Senate is out of session — would allow him to install controversial cabinet secretaries for up to two years. (Currently the Senate conducts short, ceremonial, “pro forma” sessions every few days while on breaks to prevent presidents from bypassing the Senate’s duty to “advise and consent.”)

Who Is In Contention:

John Thune: The South Dakota senator has been McConnell’s second-in-command as the GOP Senate whip since 2019. Thune has held his Senate seat since 2004, when he defeated Democratic incumbent Tom Daschle, who was the Senate majority leader. Thune, a one-time lobbyist, is seen as a favorite of corporate K-Street interests, long McConnell’s base of power. (Thune once worked for the railroad lobby, and he has been credited with blocking rail-safety reforms after the horrific 2023 derailment in East Palestine, Ohio.) Thune endorsed Tim Scott during the GOP presidential primaries.

John Cornyn: Cornyn has been a Texas senator since 2002; he held the post of whip prior to Thune from 2015 to 2019. Where Ted Cruz has been an obstructionist ideologue, Cornyn is more identified with the big-business wing of the GOP. Cornyn has money ties to much of the GOP conference as a former chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the official fundraising arm for Senate Republicans. Previously, Cornyn served as the attorney general in Texas and also as a Texas Supreme Court judge. In 2023, Cornyn opined that Trump’s time had “passed him by” and insisted the MAGA leader would need to look “beyond his base” to win again. (He later came around and endorsed Trump.)

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Rick Scott: Rick Scott is the former governor of Florida who became a Sunshine State senator in 2019. Scott has been touting his record as “a business guy,” having built one of the country’s largest hospital chains, Columbia/HCA. But under Scott’s watch, the company was also a corporate criminal, systematically defrauding Medicare, among other illicit practices. Scott was ousted as CEO in 1997, and the company later pleaded guilty to 14 felonies and paid out some $1.7 billion in fines. In legal proceedings, Scott infamously invoked his Fifth Amendment rights 75 times.

Scott is more ideological than Thune or Cornyn. He ran the NRSC in 2022, but went rogue by releasing his own hard-right policy prescriptions for the chamber — including finishing the border wall and naming it after Trump; imposing income taxes on all Americans who don’t pay them; ending debt-ceiling increases without a declaration of war; and sunsetting all federal legislation after five years — a plan that threatened the existence of Social Security and Medicare, though he later revised the proposal to exempt the programs.   

Scott previously challenged McConnell for the leader post in 2022 — and lost badly, winning just 10 votes. Scott endorsed Trump over current Florida Governor Ron DeSantis last November. (For his faults, Scott has some shred of backbone — denouncing neo-Nazi activity in Florida when DeSantis would not.) 

How Are They Jockeying?

Scott has emerged as the MAGA favorite — touted by the likes of Elon Musk, Tucker Carlson, and Charlie Kirk. He’s connected to incoming Trump chief of staff Susie Wiles, who served as Scott’s top consultant in his 2010 campaign for governor. Scott has also endorsed Trump’s plans for recess appointments, retweeting Trump’s demands and adding: “100% agree. I will do whatever it takes to get your nominations through as quickly as possible.” Scott has also told Fox News that, if elected, he’ll be Trump’s yes man: “I’m doing everything I can to make sure his agenda gets accomplished.”

Thune and Cornyn have also promised stiff, if somewhat less heroic, measures to get Trump’s cabinet nominations through. Cornyn has vowed to overcome Democratic opposition with a pledge to “stay in session, including weekends, until they relent.” Thune has promised that “all options are on the table.” Both highlighted recess appointments as a backstop. 

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Of the three, Thune has shown the most institutional independence. Prior to the current round of MAGA meddling in the leadership race, he attempted to deliver a brushback pitch, saying of Trump: “I think it’s probably in his best interest to stay out of that.”

What’s The Process?

The Senate GOP conference, including incoming members who just won election, will reportedly vote for Senate majority leader via secret ballot on Wednesday. The voting will feature a runoff to ensure the victor emerges with a majority. On Tuesday evening, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) is hosting a candidate forum in a Senate meeting room. He told the Washington Examiner: “This forum gives the candidates a chance to convince us that they’ll run things better than the old guard.”