Updated Nov. 11, 2026. All 2026 Senate results cited here are unofficial and pending certification.
Senate Republicans on Tuesday re-elected Sen. John Thune of South Dakota as their leader, one week after midterm losses cost the party at least seven Senate seats and its majority, Roll Call reported. Thune ran unopposed and was re-elected by acclamation, meaning there was no dissent and no vote, Thune spokesman Ryan Wrasse said, according to NBC News.
It was a reward for failure: a RINO leader who lost the majority, never passed the SAVE America Act and refused to end the filibuster kept the job, even though 15 Republican senators voted to postpone the election. The motion to proceed with the vote passed 31-15, NBC News and Axios reported. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who led the push to delay, walked out after that vote, according to NBC News.
In a statement carried by CNBC, Thune said he was “honored to have their continued trust and support to lead the Senate Republican Conference in the 120th Congress.” He will lead Republicans as the minority when Democrats take control of both chambers in January, Roll Call reported.
Seven seats and the majority gone
Republicans went into the election holding the Senate 53-47, USA Today reported in July. As of Nov. 10, Democrats had secured 54 seats to Republicans’ 44, with races in Mississippi and Alaska still uncalled and Democratic challengers narrowly ahead of the Republican incumbents in both, according to USA Today’s tally of Associated Press results. Democrats flipped seven Republican-held seats, including Texas, and no Democratic seat flipped, as detailed in the Politics Elections 2026 Senate postmortem. In Texas, the losses reached up and down the ballot, including Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s own race.
The whole leadership team returns. Whip John Barrasso of Wyoming, Conference Chairman Tom Cotton of Arkansas, Policy Committee Chair Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia and Conference Vice Chair James Lankford of Oklahoma were all re-elected. The only change: Sen. Bernie Moreno of Ohio replaces Sen. Tim Scott as chairman of the party’s Senate campaign arm, Axios reported.
After the vote, Thune told reporters he was not apologizing for anything Senate Republicans had done and that, on the political side, he did not know what else he could have done, according to Roll Call.
Critics wanted a reckoning first
Johnson’s push began with a letter to Cotton signed by Sens. Mike Lee of Utah, Ted Budd of North Carolina, Rick Scott of Florida and John Kennedy of Louisiana. It called the result a “stunning defeat” and warned: “Holding leadership elections without engaging in a robust discussion and evaluation of how those running for leadership intend to lead would be political malpractice,” according to the letter text obtained by Fox News Digital and Roll Call.
Lee put it plainly on X: “We have no business holding Senate Republican leadership elections until: (1) we’ve had ample opportunity to discuss what happened on Tuesday, and (2) we know who’s going to be in our conference.”
Sens. Dave McCormick of Pennsylvania and Jim Banks of Indiana also backed a delay, Fox News reported. McCormick said in a statement that last week brought the party’s worst election result in decades, NBC News reported. Johnson told reporters that a defeat of that size demands change, according to Fox News, and Kennedy said he voted present, not yes, on proceeding to the elections, Roll Call reported.
Conservative writers outside the Senate went further. The American Spectator’s Scott McKay summed up his Nov. 5 column this way: “The Senate GOP’s biggest failure shouldn’t get a promotion to minority leader.” At Townhall, Matt Vespa wrote: “The guy who couldn’t get anything done is back in the Senate with his minions.”
Johnson stepped aside. Thune stayed.
House Speaker Mike Johnson of Louisiana told colleagues on Nov. 4, the day after the election, that he would not seek a leadership post in the next Congress, Axios reported, publishing his letter. “After three years in this role, I believe the time has come for me to give them more of the attention and presence they so richly deserve,” Johnson wrote of his family. Politics Elections covered his decision that day.
The same day, Thune posted on X that “Senate Republicans have put up a strong record of accomplishment.” McKay wrote that Thune was “touting his utterly meager achievements” while Johnson “was giving a dignified resignation.”
“Thune was the problem on Capitol Hill the last two years. Johnson actually did his job.”
— Scott McKay, The American Spectator, Nov. 5, 2026
The SAVE America Act stalled in Thune’s Senate
The SAVE America Act would require Americans to prove citizenship when registering to vote and to show photo ID when casting a ballot, Roll Call reported. The House passed it Feb. 11 by a vote of 218-213, with 217 Republicans and one Democrat voting yes, House Clerk records show.
In the Senate, it never cleared the 60-vote bar. On S. 1383, the Senate’s vehicle for the bill, cloture failed 49-41 on March 21 on an amendment “to protect women and girls in athletics” (Senate vote 60) and 53-47 on March 26 on an amendment “to require voters to provide photo identification” (vote 73). A separate photo ID bill failed 52-46 on Aug. 8 (vote 231). Thune filed all three cloture motions, the Senate cloture record shows.
President Donald Trump pressed Thune to get it done. On July 27, Trump wrote on Truth Social that “John Thune should not allow the United States Senate to ‘leave town’ until it passes The Save America Act or, far better still, TERMINATES THE FILIBUSTER, where Republicans can then quickly pass everything they ever dreamed of.” Days earlier, Trump urged supporters at a speech in Georgia to call Thune about the bill, and White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said the president’s patience with Thune was running out, USA Today reported.
The bill is still on conservatives’ lame-duck list. Rick Scott’s Monday letter to colleagues asked for the SAVE America Act to pass before Democrats take power, Roll Call reported.
The filibuster stayed
Thune refused throughout the year to end the legislative filibuster or force a talking filibuster to pass the bill. On March 9, he told ABC News that changing the 60-vote rule would not happen and that Republicans lacked the votes to nuke the filibuster. A day later, he told reporters the votes were not there to end the filibuster or to run a talking filibuster, CBS News reported.
Trump warned of the cost. “Whichever Party Terminates the Filibuster FIRST will be the Party that survives and thrives,” he wrote on July 27. In the same day’s post about Thune, Trump wrote: “The Dumocrats will do it on day one, and can’t believe how lucky they got with this Senate leadership.”
Vespa argued that Republicans who expected the filibuster to survive had misread Democrats: “Even more baffling were the two dozen Republicans who thought the filibuster would remain part of procedure — it’s going away.”
Jordan takes over House Republicans
House Republicans chose a new direction. House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan of Ohio defeated Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana 106-73 in a secret-ballot vote Tuesday to become House Republican leader, NBC News and NPR reported. He will serve as minority leader in the new Congress, where Democrats hold the House majority.
Jordan, 62, co-founded the House Freedom Caucus, NPR reported. “I am battle-tested on the oversight front and I know the Democrats’ playbook,” he wrote to colleagues. Freedom Caucus Chairman Andy Harris said in a statement that “Jim is exactly the right man for the job to fight back against the radical, crazy agenda of Democrats.”
NBC News wrote that Jordan’s win signals House Republicans “wanted a clean break” from the Johnson team. Senate Republicans made no such break.
What comes next
Republicans hold both chambers until the new Congress begins Jan. 3, 2027. A resolution Senate Republicans voted on Tuesday says the conference will “maximize the 54 days we have with congressional majorities” and “do everything humanly possible to pass a reconciliation bill before Jan. 3,” Roll Call reported. Thune will lead the Senate GOP into the minority after that.
