Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., is doing everything he can to become the leader of the Republican conference.
Thune, who serves as Minority Whip, is running against Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas and Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., in the race to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., who is stepping down as minority leader at the end of the session.
Thune and Cornyn have been hitting the campaign trail and attending fundraisers. Thune was recently in Indiana raising money for Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., who is favored to win his senate race.
The South Dakota senator has proposed democratizing the GOP conference, allowing an open floor process and giving more powers to individual senators, rather than having leadership run everything, Punchbowl reported.
McConnell has urged those running to succeed him to not weaken leadership's power, Punchbowl reported.
Thune has met with Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, who has proposed rules that would dramatically decentralize the power of the leadership conference.
Thune told Punchbowl he wants to "hear people out and we'll see where the conference wants to go," but seemed supportive of Lee's idea to prevent the majority leader from squashing amendment votes without backing from 75% of the conference.
"What I would tell our colleagues is, give me a chance," Thune told Punchbowl. "And I can show you how we do things. A lot of this is style, it's the way that you go about leadership. I think there are things we can do differently and things that will perhaps address the concerns that people have just by the style of leadership we bring."
Thune said he is optimistic about the Senate races in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania, which would help Republicans flip the majority. Thune told Punchbowl senate races in Arizona are "close, margin-of-error races."
"All of these races are in play. It's a big map. As we've said, we can win them all; we can lose them all," Thune said. "Hopefully we win more than we lose."
Sam Barron ✉
Sam Barron has almost two decades of experience covering a wide range of topics including politics, crime and business.
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