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The future of Donald Trump’s second term in office will be shaped inside a closed room in the United States Senate on Wednesday. There, on a secret ballot, Republican senators will choose Mitch McConnell’s replacement and begin a new era for the Senate GOP.
In an interview with POLITICO Magazine, Liam Donovan, a former GOP political operative and lobbyist who’s a close observer of Capitol Hill, laid out the political landmines facing the candidates to be the next Senate majority leader and the sway that Trump holds — or doesn’t hold — in the contest.
There are three contenders: John Thune of South Dakota, the current Republican whip; John Cornyn of Texas, his predecessor as Republican whip; and Rick Scott of Florida, a longtime McConnell critic who is running as an outsider.
The MAGA crowd has rallied behind Scott, but Trump himself has shied away from an endorsement. Instead, Trump has issued demands on Truth Social for candidates to allow him to make recess appointments to fill vacancies, to which the leadership candidates quickly responded with varying degrees of support.
It’s a reminder that regardless of who wins, there will be some break with McConnell.
“I do think there is enough desire to change how the chamber operates that you have to indulge some of the demands,” Donovan said, “both from the rank and file, but also some of the things that the president is talking about.”
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
What are the stakes of the race, and why is it such a big deal?
I think it's a big deal in the sense that Donald Trump just won a huge victory, bigger than anybody really anticipated, and so it's a massive opportunity for the party to consolidate those gains through policy wins.
But it also is a fundamental hinge point in the future of the Senate as an institution. The McConnell era lasted for 18 years. That’s the longest serving leader in history. That style of leadership began to chafe with the churn of the institution. And so it's up to the members now to determine what that future looks like. I think it's a unique moment in that the president-elect has an opportunity to shape the prerogatives of the senators more so than probably any president before him, and certainly more than we might have guessed a week ago.
Is this a race about the internal processes of the Senate, or is this ideological?
I think it's mostly about process. There is process and there is sort of attitude. And if you think about what the shift of the party under Donald Trump has been, I think it's attitudinal as much as anything else.
Certainly from the standpoint of the voting records of these members, they're fairly similar. Rick Scott might be in a little bit of a different place, a little bit harder line, but generally speaking, they're all considered conservative members. Where they differ is mostly in their approach toward the establishment. Obviously, Thune and Cornyn have been long serving members of leadership. Scott has styled himself as an opponent of leadership and of the establishment. So it's less about ideology per se, more about attitude, and more about how the Senate should operate.
What are the factions within the conference that each are appealing to?
I think the early cleavages that we saw happened in 2022 which was the last time that McConnell was challenged, and there was an effort to delay the leadership elections until after the Georgia runoff. It was about a third of the conference that was signaling a frustration with how things were going, and at some level, that is a proxy for “We should change directions.” I think that is very much the faction that Scott is looking to harness. For the most part, it’s the votes that he got in the last challenge of McConnell. Perhaps that caucus has grown as the Republican Conference grows here with incoming members, it's hard to say yet. But I think those members will really determine where things head, because the Cornyn and Thune binary is much more of a nuanced question. I think it's personality based. Directionally, they're very similar. They're both very well liked. And so what it really comes down to is if, as the conventional wisdom expects and Scott falls short on the first ballot, then the election will be determined by which direction those Scott votes go.
There is an appetite for something different. But Rick Scott, as we've seen before, is a bad vessel for those desires. Interpersonally, he doesn't have a great base of support. I think we've seen an impressive show of force online and with Trump/MAGA allies, and that’s all well and good, but they don't get a vote. I do think that there probably was a time where there was an opening for someone else, but it doesn't seem like we'll get that. So what it really means is Rick Scott probably plays kingmaker — that his pool of votes are the ones who are going to determine which Majority Leader John we end up with.
What are the nuances between the two Johns? Is it just personality?
They are men who both have a long history in the chamber. Both have lengthy stints in leadership. They've both had the same job as whip. I think that leaves them in a pretty similar position.
Thune reads as the continuity pick, if only by virtue of being the sitting whip, but that’s just about timing. John Cornyn had been the whip and he was turned out just by virtue of the [term limit] rules of the conference. That's kind of a fluke of history in some ways, and McConnell's longevity. Cornyn’s biggest selling point is that he is the single strongest fundraiser in the conference. He has raised over $400 million in hard dollars since he's been in the Senate. They've raised similar amounts this cycle, but Thune is focused, I think, a little bit more on the soft money, which is important, but a different flavor. Texas is the ATM of the conference in many ways, and will continue to be for years to come.
And the other piece of this is John Cornyn was the two-time chair of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. My full disclosure is I worked for him there in the good cycle. I think he had a hand in recruiting and electing a good number of the senators. We elected 13 Republicans in 2010, he was there again in 2012 so I think of that as a differentiator, that's something he brings to the table.
But really I think you can't go wrong if you are a Republican voting on these things, and it really just comes down to those personal relationships. The other piece of this is that they're limbering up for the competition.
Trump has shrewdly viewed Scott as a point of leverage, who, even if [Trump] can't affirmatively make him a leader, he can extract a good number of concessions from either majority leader. So the utility of Scott is that he sets the ante for what a majority leader will have to commit to in order to get the job. And you're already seeing that in terms of what both Johns — really all three candidates — are indicating an openness to. The bargaining is afoot. Trump has demanded recess appointments, which is a bit interesting, in a majority you control. He's demanded no deal with Democrats on nominations in the lame duck and timely consideration of his own nominees. Now the question will be, does he come up with any more demands? Because I think at this point, be willing to bargain if it means getting the big job.
So if Trump can’t pick the leader, he can at least pick the rules that the leader agrees to?
Trump has a more acute ability to break people than he does to make people and so I think that's part of what goes into his choice of how much to weigh in here. Because Rick Scott is probably not popular enough as a baseline matter for Trump's endorsement to make him happen, but he absolutely could sink any of these candidates, and so that gives him leverage to extract whatever concessions he would like.
There are reasons for the different MAGA boosters to be angry about either of these guys. I don't think it will matter in the end, but it does matter what the senators who are for Rick Scott think. How do they view this choice?
Does the public pressure campaign on Scott’s behalf matter at all?
These things are so personal. I think the online pressure campaigns can stand to backfire. I think public pressure to make your voice or make your choice public could be something to watch for, but otherwise I think it's a little bit delicate, because historically, the senatorial prerogative in the most distinguished club in the world has been something they prize. But I think we're in a bit of a new era and a new moment.
Regardless of which John it is, how big of a break will it be with McConnell?
I think there will be some opening up the floor of the chamber, trying to lean into and satisfy the appetites of some of these members to vote to do more. That's not necessarily a repudiation of the McConnell era. He served admirably for the time that he did. But I do think there is enough desire to change how the chamber operates that you have to indulge some of the demands, both from the rank and file, but also some of the things that the president is talking about. I don't think there will be a clean break. These are reasonable, smart, savvy operators who have been at the highest level of leadership for decades now. But I think they are taking this job with eyes open in terms of what it means to be in the Republican Party of 2024 in a Trump trifecta.
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