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With Mitch McConnell announcing plans to retire from his leadership perch in November, Washington’s eyes quickly turned to the “three Johns” expected to vie for his job.
Sens. John Thune, R-S.D., John Cornyn, R-Texas, and John Barrasso, R-Wyo. have long been viewed as the Kentuckian’s most likely heirs, each having jockeyed their way into key GOP leadership roles in recent years. The lawmakers largely avoided discussing their future plans on Wednesday (though Cornyn did acknowledge he’d “made no secret of my intentions.”) But around Capitol Hill, McConnell’s announcement was treated as the starting gun of a marathon succession race.
“The beautiful thing about what Mitch McConnell is doing for us is giving the Johns a long runway to audition for the job,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D. told reporters when asked who he’d support. “So I don’t know — we’ll see how many dinner dates I get.”
Sen. Susan Collins, R-Maine said she was already beginning to field calls from potential contenders, though she declined to provide names. “You guys are always interested in the intrigue,” she told reporters.
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The differences between the Johns can be a bit subtle. As the party’s whip, Thune is currently the Senate’s No. 2 Republican, and at 63 he’s the youngest of the trio. Cornyn, who also held the whip post for years, is a renowned fundraiser who likes to mix it up on X. But the bipartisan gun safety bill he brokered after the mass shooting in Uvalde may have lost him some favor on the right. Barasso, the conference chair, is considered the most strictly conservative among the bunch: He voted against the Senate’s Ukraine aid bill this month, for instance, which both Cornyn and Thune supported.
The three might not have the track all to themselves. Some of McConnell’s conservative critics have already floated alternatives, including Sen. Steve Daines, R-Mont. who’s been praised for revitalizing the Senate GOP’s campaign arm and recruiting a strong crop of candidates for 2024. Sen. Rick Scott, who mounted an ill-fated challenge to McConnell’s leadership last year, also hasn’t ruled out a run.
The View From Mar-a-Lago
There is also a fourth John to consider: Donald John Trump. The Senate GOP’s leadership vote will take place shortly after the 2024 election, and if the former president — who has long had an openly hostile relationship with McConnell — returns to the White House, he’ll almost certainly want his say.
All three of the Johns have now endorsed Trump, but past critical comments could haunt some of their bids. Thune famously called Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election “inexcusable,” while Cornyn said last May that he believed “Trump’s time has passed him by.” Barrasso might be in the clear: Though Trump did once describe him as McConnell’s “flunky,” he lavishly praised the Wyomingite as an “extraordinary man” after receiving his endorsement in the leadup to this year’s Iowa Caucus.
On Wednesday, some Senate Republicans downplayed how much influence Trump will likely have on the conference’s decision, even if he wins the White House. “I think the Senate will decide who our leaders are,” said Sen. Mike Rounds, R-S.D., who added he would back his home state colleague Thune. “Clearly, you can’t walk away from outside forces, but I think individual members will make up their own minds.”
Others acknowledged that the next GOP leader would need to be in reasonably good standing with Trump to be effective. “I don’t know that having an extremely strong relationship would be necessary, but having at least a cordial relationship will be important,” Sen. Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., told Semafor. James Lankford
If Trump does have a major say, it might bode well for Daines. The Montanan has worked closely with ex-president while recruiting candidates for 2024, and in April of last year became the first member of GOP leadership to endorse Trump’s campaign. (Thune only got around to it this week.)
Step Back
Some Senators said Wednesday they would have their eye on more mundane issues, like which candidates have the best grasp of Senate rules, or were most invested in restoring regular order to the budget process.
But there was one more explosive procedural topic that quickly came up: Maintaining the filibuster, a top priority of McConnell’s in recent years. Democrats came close to building support for a workaround during Biden’s presidency and Trump sought to end it during his presidency as well.
“I will never vote for a leader who won’t make a public statement that the filibuster has to remain intact,” Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C. told Semafor. Sen. James Lankford, R-Okla. also said he wanted to see the 60-vote threshold preserved. “I would think it’s important for the Senate to be the Senate. I don’t want the Senate to be a baby House,” he said.
Still, the Senate’s pro-Trump members are already signaling their desire for a more combative leader than McConnell, who despite his scorched earth innovations with the filibuster and brutal fights with the Obama administration, was often seen by the party’s base as insufficiently conservative. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc. told Semafor he wanted the next head of the conference to pick a real fight over the debt limit, in order “to extract some measure of additional fiscal control.”
That’s already beginning to worry Democrats, who over the years came to see McConnell as a bulwark against his party’s Trumpier impulses, especially on foreign policy, and a competent manager who prevented his conference from devolving into similar chaos as the House GOP.
“Watching the latest craziness around funding for Ukraine and passing the budget [is] leaving me worried that while I’m no fan of McConnell’s, we could do a lot worse on the Republican side,” Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass. told reporters.