Washington- Senate Republicans re-elected Senator John Thune as leader Tuesday, holding the line as they prepare to enter the minority following the party’s brutal midterm defeats, which saw at least seven Senate seats fall to Democrats.
Senate Republicans endorsed Thune for two more years as leader by acclamation or unopposed, after meeting behind closed doors in the old Senate chamber for much of the day.
Thune, 65, is a South Dakota Republican who was first elected leader after the 2024 elections. He has been in the Senate since 2005 and took over two decades later, after working under Senator Mitch McConnell as the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
Highly appreciated by his conference, there was no doubt that Thune would remain leader. But a last-minute push from several conservative members to delay the election added a problem.
Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images 
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin led the campaign to delay the vote after disastrous midterm results for Republicans. He obtained the signatures of a handful of his colleagues — Senators John Kennedy of Louisiana, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida and Mike Lee of Utah — to force a conference meeting before Tuesday’s election. But efforts to further delay the process have failed.
Johnson told reporters that Senate Republicans “simply cannot continue business as usual” after a “stunning defeat” in the election.
“I mean, this kind of defeat demands change,” Johnson said when asked if new leadership was needed.
But Johnson acknowledged there was no clear alternative to Thune. He argued that Senate Republicans need to at least hear from their leadership team on what strategy to follow.
After a closed-door meeting for two hours Tuesday morning and then another meeting later in the afternoon, Johnson told reporters that “this was never about John Thune.”
“I think he was very unfairly attacked by our base,” Johnson said.
For his part, Thune was supportive of the consolidation efforts and acknowledged that the decision on whether to delay the selection of their leaders would ultimately be up to the members.
“I think ultimately, I think it’s important that, moving forward, we resolve some of these issues as quickly as possible,” Thune told CBS News on Monday. “We’ll see what our members think tomorrow.”
Thune’s re-election as party leader comes after he led Senate Republicans as they passed the president’s massive tax, border security and defense agenda, quickly confirmed the president’s nominees and approved a handful of bipartisan priorities over the past two years. At the same time, his tenure was marked by two record government shutdowns and a White House often out of step with Republicans in Congress.
Some Republicans have criticized Thune’s record, arguing that the Republican Party’s agenda was not aggressive enough. Conservative frustrations have come to a head over the SAVE America Act, a controversial election bill that President Trump has repeatedly championed. Thune made it clear that the bill did not have enough support in the Upper House to move forward.
Before the election, Thune pushed back against criticism of the Senate Republican agenda, telling CBS News, “I don’t know how you could be more aggressive.” And he defended the record of Senate Republicans, while acknowledging that there were factors beyond their control.
Senate Republicans had entered the midterm cycle with a map that initially looked favorable, offering Democrats few opportunities for recovery. But Republican candidates across the country were sidelined due to cost of living concerns and the war in Iran took center stage and widened the map for Democrats. The Senate Republican Party lost seats in battleground states like Ohio and North Carolina, as well as Republican strongholds like South Carolina, Kansas and Texas. Two Senate elections – Alaska and Mississippi – remain up in the air and could yield more victories for Democrats.
Thune, in his first-floor speech since the midterms, said, “There’s no doubt about it, Tuesday night was a tough election night.” He said the election results gave Senate Republicans “an opportunity to think about what we need to do better as a party” and “a clear message that the next Congress needs to double down on the work we’ve done on affordability.”
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