FORT WAYNE, Ind. — The Senate Republican leadership election is the ultimate Washington insiders’ game. The contenders have spent months courting senators and candidates through a mix of private meetings, phone calls, fundraising and campaign travel. The election is conducted via a secret ballot, adding a bit of suspense to the affair.
But 500 miles from Washington, Rep. Jim Banks (R-Ind.), who’s certain to be a voting member of the Senate Republican Conference come November, says he’ll be leaning on his political base in this small midwestern city to help reach a decision.
It’s why Banks has invited both Senate Minority Whip John Thune and Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) to campaign with him. Last Thursday, Thune gave a keynote speech at an Allen County GOP dinner and fundraiser for Banks and other local candidates.
“My supporters — I want them to kick the tires in the Senate leadership race,” Banks told us here. “My donors, my voters, my supporters from my home area who mean the most to me are going to get a chance to hear from [the candidates].”
Moments later, Allen County GOP chairman Steven Shine grabbed a microphone and introduced Thune as “the next U.S. Senate majority leader.”
Banks paused, pointed up at the speaker system, and said: “See how he’s being introduced?”
The likely soon-to-be senator made clear he wasn’t making a formal endorsement in the race to succeed current Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. Banks noted it’s “obviously very competitive” and said Cornyn has been “incredibly helpful.” Cornyn will be in Fort Wayne on Thursday to fundraise for Banks.
But that moment showed how the intrigue surrounding the race is extending beyond the halls of the Senate as a rare change in the GOP leadership suite is on the horizon.
Crunch time: A month out from the leadership elections, Thune and Cornyn are working to build support for their bids by hitting the trail and holding private meetings with incumbent GOP senators. Sen. Rick Scott (R-Fla.) is also running. But Scott is focused on his own reelection, as well as hurricane recovery efforts.
Thune’s pitch centers on “democratizing” the GOP Conference through a more open floor process and empowering individual senators, though he’s kept his powder dry on many of the specific ideas some colleagues have demanded.
Hardline conservatives have been pushing for an aggressive overhaul of the Republican leadership structure. Yet McConnell has been urging senators behind closed doors to resist the urge to weaken the leader’s power.
Thune has met a few times with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who recently proposed a series of changes to the conference’s rules that amount to a drastic decentralization of power. Thune is revealing very little about how he’s addressing conservatives’ demands — and that’s on purpose.
In an interview ahead of his speech here, Thune told us he wants to “hear people out and we’ll see where the conference wants to go.” However, he did allude generally to one of Lee’s ideas: Preventing the majority leader from quashing amendment votes without backing from 75% of the conference.
We asked Thune whether he agreed with McConnell’s warnings. Thune said he thinks many of the hardliners’ concerns will “get resolved by a change in leadership” — in other words, McConnell’s exit — and by flipping the majority:
Shift to the Midwest: Senate Republicans faced a map with multiple pickup opportunities to begin with this cycle. But now some are privately indicating it’s time to shift the focus to a handful of states they see as best chances to flip red.
Thune zeroed in on the Rust Belt states, especially Wisconsin, which is trending in Republicans’ direction. He also named Michigan and Pennsylvania. We asked Thune if there was a reason he didn’t mention Arizona or Nevada.
“Those are races that are on our radar, and everybody’s paying attention to them,” Thune said, adding he spoke with NRSC Chair Steve Daines that morning.
While Arizona and Nevada are “close, margin-of-error races,” Thune said, the “Rust Belt races have really tightened a lot.”
“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.”
Out West: Cornyn was in Reno last Friday campaigning with Sam Brown, the GOP candidate in Nevada. Cornyn attended a rally with former President Donald Trump that evening and met with him afterward.
Cornyn and Thune were critical of Trump in the months following his departure from the White House, but both men have since mended their relationships with him.
Trump will inevitably take responsibility for winning the Senate majority, so don’t count on him staying completely out of the race.
