Secret ballots marked behind closed doors will decide who will be the most powerful official in the upper chamber of the 119th Congress.
Florida Sen. Rick Scott’s campaign to be the next Senate Majority Leader is surging with a blizzard of endorsements from colleagues who normally keep silent about who they will support for the position until the secret ballots are cast.
Scott, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, and Sen. John Thune of South Dakota are competing to succeed Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the longest-serving Republican Senate leader of modern times, having filled the position since 2007 in Senates controlled by both parties.
Scott challenged McConnell for the position two years ago, but garnered only 11 votes. Cornyn was McConnell’s deputy during President Donald Trump’s first term in the White House. Thune was McConnell’s deputy during President Joe Biden’s tenure in the Oval Office.
The Florida Republican’s surge of support over the weekend came from colleagues in the Senate and unexpected major backers outside of Congress.
Scott’s Florida colleague, Sen. Marco Rubio, posted his endorsement on X Sunday, as did former GOP presidential contender Vivek Ramaswamy.
“Said it earlier this year & I’ll say it again: @ScottforFlorida for Senate Majority Leader,” Ramaswamy said.
Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who was encouraged by some libertarians to seek the top post, announced his endorsement of Scott on X Saturday. “I will be supporting Rick Scott for Senate Majority Leader. The status quo of $2 Trillion annual deficits is unsustainable,” Paul said.
Also endorsing Scott Saturday was Sen. Bill Hagerty (R-Tenn.), who declared on X that he was doing so because “any leader of this new majority must be able to work hand-in-hand with President Trump to advance his America First agenda. The Senate must lean into advancing this agenda.”
“That’s why I want to see a Senate Majority Leader who can join me in embracing the Trump agenda, which will unify Senate Republicans,” Hagerty said.
Perhaps the most unexpected Scott endorsement came from Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who wrote on X Sunday that “without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda wobbly.” A Scott aide said Kennedy and the Florida senator do not have a long-standing relationship.
X owner Elon Musk also became a factor in the Senate leadership race, endorsing Scott and posting a survey on his platform Sunday asking the public which of the three candidates they favored. Scott was comfortably ahead late Sunday, drawing 67 percent of the more 767,000 votes, compared to 5 percent for Thune and 6 percent for Cornyn. “Other” drew 22 percent support.
Cornyn, who was the first of the three candidates to declare publicly, also got his first public endorsement from one of the Senate’s most vocal and visible conservatives, Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.), who cited the Texas Republican’s fund-raising prowess.
In an indication of the deeply “inside baseball” nature of such congressional leadership contests, Hawley issued his endorsement first via a statement to Punchbowl News, a political newsletter focused on Congress and the White House.
Cornyn is also encountering significant opposition from conservative and evangelical Christian activists, according to a long-time leader of one of those groups. Speaking on background, the leader told The Epoch Times that “Cornyn protected the establishment when he was chair of the Senatorial campaign committee backing [then-Florida Gov.] Charlie Crist over Rubio” in the state’s 2010 GOP Senate primary.
A senior Senate aide, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times, however, that Rubio subsequently supported Cornyn, who was reelected unanimously to head the committee for another campaign cycle.
Crist subsequently left the GOP and lost a 2022 bid for another term in the Florida state House as a Democrat while continuing a simultaneous gubernatorial campaign against Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis, who won a second term in defeating Crist by 19 percentage points.
Thune is struggling against similar opposition, according to the same leader, who criticized the lawmaker for not being a champion of conservative causes.
A spokesman for Thune told The Epoch Times the claim is “unequivocally untrue.”
Trump has kept mum about who among the Republican Senate trio he would prefer to work with as Senate Majority Leader in the 119th Congress.
Trump did post on Truth Social on Sunday a couple of his requirements for whoever wins Wednesday’s election. The incoming chief executive said he expects the new leader to support expedited Recess Appointments, “without which we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.”
During his first term’s third and fourth years, when Democrats controlled both houses of Congress, Trump’s choices to fill executive branch vacancies created by firings or resignations were often delayed.
“Sometimes the votes can take two years, or more,” Trump said in his Truth Social post. “This is what they did four years ago, and we cannot let it happen again. We need positions filled IMMEDIATELY!”
He also said the Lame Duck Congress, which returns to the nation’s capital on Tuesday, should not confirm any more of Biden’s judicial appointments.As Scott’s prospects advanced over the weekend, the open leadership position also gave rise to discussions about the possibility of a radical new positioning for Vice President-elect JD Vance when he becomes the Senate’s presiding officer. Vance will resign from his Ohio Senate seat before being inaugurated in January as vice president.
While the presiding officer position has gained prominence in recent years largely due to it breaking tie votes in the Senate, Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah) floated the idea on Friday of having Vance double as the Senate majority leader.
In a “1 am” conversation with Turning Point’s Charlie Kirk, Lee pointed out that the presiding officer is under Senate rules potentially the most powerful position in the upper Chamber.
When Kirk mentioned on digital media personality Glen Beck’s show Lee’s observation to him, Beck expressed support for the idea of Vance serving as Senate Majority Leader, saying “I am in love with that … JD would be fantastic.”
Kirk noted there would be precedent for Vance assuming both roles because John Adams was Senate majority leader and presiding officer while also serving as the nation’s first vice-president under President George Washington.
Lee told The Epoch Times Sunday he was surprised by the response to his comment, but, he said, “it’s a thought that I’ve had for a long time. For most of the time I’ve been in the Senate, I’ve thought the vice-president’s position was probably under-utilized by presidents.”
The Utah Republican said he issued a post on X late Friday seeking to clarify his observation.
“What I was trying to say is not that he would be the elected majority leader per se, but that any vice-president, especially one of the same party as controls the Senate, could end up as the de facto leader of the majority party,” Lee told The Epoch Times.