Is John Thune Still Senate Majority Leader?
Yes. As of Tuesday morning, November 10, John Thune is still Senate Majority Leader — and still the Republican leader whose job is being voted on today. Senate Republicans hold their leadership elections this morning, Thune is running unopposed, and he is widely expected to keep the job. No challenger has declared against him. What changes is the title, not the man: because Democrats won the Senate on November 3, the leader Republicans pick today leads them in the minority from January 3, as Minority Leader, not Majority Leader.
The plain reality is that Thune leads the Senate Republicans only until the new Congress is sworn in at noon on January 3, 2027, whatever happens today. Republicans entered the midterms holding the Senate and lost it — Democrats will hold at least 54 seats — so this morning's vote cannot restore Thune's majority. It decides only who leads the smaller party that remains, and it is being held a week after that defeat, before the conference has sat down together to examine it.
That timing is exactly what the rebels claim is wrong. Five senators led by Ron Johnson — Rick Scott, John Kennedy, Ted Budd and Mike Lee signed with him, and Dave McCormick and Jim Banks back a pause, making seven — wrote on Monday to Conference Chairman Tom Cotton demanding the vote be delayed, calling last Tuesday's result a "stunning defeat" and arguing the conference must digest and debate the lessons of the midterms first. Thune's side answers that he remains popular in the conference, faces no declared rival, and that Scott, his 2024 challenger, has ruled out running again. Our coverage of Monday's delay letter and of Thune's run for Minority Leader sets out both positions in full.
A rushed vote for Thune would be political malpractice.
The common-sense principle is plain: you do not pick the leader first and ask why you lost afterwards. The order matters, because a leader chosen before the reckoning has no mandate to change anything — he has only been confirmed in doing what already failed.
The consequence, for now, is a forced meeting rather than a forced change. Under conference rules, five signatures compel Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito to call the full conference together, and that meeting happens this morning before any ballot; Johnson proposed 9 a.m. But the petition compels a meeting, not a postponement — unless a majority of the conference votes to delay, the secret-ballot election in the Old Senate Chamber goes ahead today with Thune the only candidate. Which leaves the question the delay camp is really asking: if Thune is re-elected this morning without that debate, what in the party's direction actually changes before January?
The details that decide it are narrow. Thune, of South Dakota, has led the Senate Republican Conference since January 2025. The other leadership posts are not seriously contested either — John Barrasso, Cotton, Capito and James Lankford are all expected to keep the No. 2 through No. 5 jobs — so today's fight is only about process and timing, not a rival name. McCormick, one of the pause backers, said plainly he was not calling for Thune to resign.
The rebels' whole case sits in the words of their Monday letter, which called a leadership vote held before that reckoning "political malpractice."