GOP race to replace McConnell heats up

The leadership race to replace retiring Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.) is heating up as Senate Republican Whip John Thune (S.D.) announced Tuesday that he will transfer $4 million to the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) to overcome the Senate Democrats’ growing cash advantage.

Thune’s contribution is the largest by a senator to the Senate Republican campaign arm in history, breaking the previous record of $2 million, which he himself set back in 2016.

Thune made his gift from a campaign war chest of more than $18 million, and he will still have more than $14 million in his campaign account going forward. He’s made more than $9 million in direct transfers to the NRSC during his time in the Senate.    

Thune’s top rival, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), is making his own moves to win the support of GOP colleagues.

He says he’s on track to raise $25 million for Senate Republican candidates this cycle and circulated a letter Monday laying out his leadership vision for 2025 and beyond.

Cornyn pledged to oppose efforts to scrap the Senate filibuster and to get back to the habit of passing an annual budget to set spending priorities and limits.  

“With the election rapidly approaching, it is only prudent to think broadly and boldly about our goals. With a Trump presidency and a Republican majority in Congress, our opportunities in Congress will only increase,” he wrote.

McConnell says he will step down from leadership at the end of the year but plans to finish the rest of his current Senate term, which runs through 2026. He says he will focus on building up national defense and taking on isolationists in his own party.

With McConnell stepping down, fundraising is becoming a growing concern of many GOP senators as they’re falling behind Senate Democrats in this year’s money chase.

Senate Republicans say they expect to be outspent by Democrats in battleground races around the country. This makes Thune’s $4 million transfer to the party committee and Cornyn’s access to big donors in Texas major selling points in the leadership race.

“We’re being vastly outraised and outspent. Democrats just have an incredible cash machine known as Act Blue and all these races are national in scope so they’re not limiting [in fundraising] to the individual state,” Cornyn told reporters Tuesday. “We got the issues to run on and now I just think it’s a matter of resources.”

Cornyn was a special guest at Texas fundraisers for the Trump-Vance campaign last month, which he attended with Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio) in Laredo, San Antonio and Houston.

He recently was a special guest at a fundraiser in Pennsylvania for GOP Senate candidate Dave McCormick. And he spent time fundraising in Ohio last week.

The third candidate in the race, Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.), has kept his name in the spotlight by emerging as a leading surrogate for former President Trump’s campaign. He traveled to Chicago last month to help lead the GOP response to the Democratic National Convention.

And Scott is one of the Senate’s wealthiest members. He built a national fundraising network when he headed the NRSC in the 2022 election cycle.

Scott announced at a lunch meeting Tuesday that he will max out his donations to the Senate Republican campaign arm this year.

Republican senators say there’s still a chance that current NRSC Chair Steve Daines (R-Mont.) or another dark horse candidate may jump into the race to replace McConnell, the longest serving party leader in Senate history.

Thune said Tuesday that he’s keeping in close contact with fellow Republican senators as the time winds down to the leadership election, which is traditionally held every year in mid-November after a presidential or midterm election.

“I’ve been having conversations literally with all my colleagues and [with] some multiple conversations. And so I’m listening to what their views are about what they want to see in the next leader and talking about how I would do the job,” he said.

Asked about Cornyn’s pledge to protect the filibuster as GOP leader, Thune said he would do the same.

“We’re all committed to the filibuster,” he said.

Thune warned that if Vice President Harris wins the presidential election and Republicans take back control of the Senate, Democrats would have to think “long and hard” about what judicial and executive branch nominees they send to the Senate for confirmation.

“Because we have the power of confirmation, I think they’re going to have to think long and hard about who they submit and whether or not they can get them through the Senate,” he said.

“Certainly, we hope we have all the reins of power next year,” he added, citing Republican optimism that Trump will win the White House and Republicans will keep the House majority.

Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) said he thinks Thune has the inside edge in the leadership race, and he predicted the contest would be won based on “personal relationships” in the Senate GOP conference more than anything else.

“It’s a very, very personal in-house sort of thing. I won leadership races twice by one vote,” said Lott, who beat then-Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) in a closely contested race for GOP whip in November of 2006.

“I made it a point to have personal relationships,” Lott said of his efforts to organize the barbershop quartet of the “Singing Senators” and the Senate’s “Seersucker Day.” “I made sure this place was a little fun, which it ain’t anymore.”

“I guess now money is so important that it would make some difference,” in the race, he said.

“Cornyn, I’m sure, has a lot of good Texas money, but I know Thune has been a very aggressive fundraiser. I get about one or two a week from him — invitations to fundraisers,” he added.

Asked who has the edge in the race, Lott said: “I think Thune probably does.”

But he said the big question is which candidate winds up getting the senators who vote for the candidate in third place, who would then be eliminated from a second round of balloting.

If, for example, Scott finishes in third place and most of his conservative supporters then flock to either Thune or Cornyn on a second round of voting, that could decide who becomes the next Senate GOP leader.