US election: Senate Republicans pick insider John Thune as leader, edging out Donald Trump ally Rick Scott

Senate Republicans have elected John Thune to lead the chamber next year, opting for a well-regarded insider and shrugging off a public pressure campaign by supporters of Donald Trump to pick a loyalist to the US president-elect.

The South Dakota senator’s victory in a three-way contest is a sign the Senate could retain some degree of independence from Trump next year, when Republicans will control the White House and possibly both chambers of Congress.

Republicans will hold at least 52 seats in the 100-seat Senate and are on track to retain their majority in the House of Representatives, where several races have yet to be decided.

Thune, 63, is seen as an even-tempered institutionalist and seasoned legislator who has close relationships with many of his fellow Republicans.

He currently serves as the chamber’s No. 2 Republican and will succeed 82-year-old Mitch McConnell, the longest serving party leader in Senate history.

He was first elected to the Senate in 2004.

Thune prevailed over Senator John Cornyn of Texas, another long-serving institutionalist, and Rick Scott of Florida, a close ally of the president-elect who was backed by influential outsiders like billionaire Elon Musk and Trump-aligned conservative commentators.

That made the normally clubby election an early test of Senate independence under Trump, who has not endorsed a candidate but called on the next Republican leader to give him leeway to bypass the normal system of hearings and votes to approve cabinet nominees.

All three contenders quickly signalled their openness to the idea.

Some of Trump’s loudest supporters had expressed concern that Thune and Cornyn, who had both worked closely with McConnell, might lack the willingness to deliver on some of Trump’s campaign promises.

Both have served for two decades and delivered major legislation and helped elected other Republicans.

Scott, first elected in 2018, previously served two terms as Florida governor.

“Without Rick Scott, the entire Trump reform agenda wobbly,” Trump adviser Robert F Kennedy Jr said in a post on X before the vote.

Senate Republicans resisted that pressure.

The job of majority leader, they said, requires someone who has spent time building trust and support within the caucus.

“I don’t think it’s worth the president using the political capital that he has to weigh in on the race,” said Senator Markwayne Mullin, a Thune supporter.