Trump’s allies must be angry.

South Dakota Sen. John Thune was elected Senate Republican leader on Wednesday, replacing Mitch McConnell in the position after his record-breaking 18 years in office. Thune, who has been McConnell’s No. 2 since 2019, defeated Texas Senator John Cornyn 29 to 24 in a second round vote. A third candidate, Florida Sen. Rick Scott, came last in the first round of voting and dropped out of contention.

Thune’s elevation signals a slight but significant curtailment of the federal government’s impending MAGAfication. While some of President-elect Trump’s most vocal supporters both inside and outside the Senate pushed hard for Scott’s candidacy last week, the Senate stayed the course and chose as McConnell’s successor the person least likely to diverge from McConnell’s veteran GOP. If there’s still one redoubt in the Republican Party where outside pressure from right-wing media can’t get the job done, it’s secret voting contests in the Senate.

“A lot of people are focused on the policy, a lot of people are focused on the process,” Oklahoma Sen. Markwayne Mullin, a Thune supporter, told reporters after the vote. “But when it’s peer-to-peer voting, it’s also based on relationships. And Thune has done a really good job of building relationships, and so has Cornyn. And that’s what matters: relationships.”

Thune came to the Senate with a bang 20 years ago. He defeated Senator Tom Daschle, then the Democratic leader in the Senate. He worked his way up to No. 3 by 2012 and replaced the term-limited Cornyn as the Republican front-runner in 2019. In this respect, Cornyn was as much a victim of a climax at the wrong time as anything else. As a long list of once-potential successors to Nancy Pelosi will well understand, McConnell simply held on to his position a little longer than was ideal. Not surprisingly, one of the clearest dividing lines between the two front-runners was Cornyn’s support for term limits for party leaders, an idea that McConnell repels.

Thune, an amiable 63-year-old who prefers to talk about the Senate calendar rather than brand his opposition as demonically possessed, did his best to make a partisan opening statement in a news conference after the Senate GOP conclave.

“The American people have loudly rejected the failed policies of the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda,” Thune said. “We have a mandate from the American people to not only clean up the mess left by the Biden-Harris-Schumer agenda, but also to implement President Trump’s priorities,” Thune, who in the past has followed press conferences from the GOP leadership After staying there for 10 or 15 minutes to answer questions from reporters, this time he took three questions from reporters on camera and headed out. He has begun to enter his McConnellesque bunker.

Although Thune doesn’t have the bitter past with Trump that McConnell does, they don’t fit hand in hand. Although Thune was patient, he seemed pained during the first Trump administration when asked about the stupid tweet Trump posted at 7 a.m. Thune is more of a Chamber of Commerce low-tax advocate than a culture warrior advocating woke capitalism; The two seem highly incongruous, especially with Trump’s plans for far-reaching tariffs. Trump and Thune clashed most sharply after the 2020 election, when Thune argued that Electoral College objections would come across “like a shotgun blast” in the Senate. Trump then called Thune “Mitch’s boy” and said that “he’s going to have the primaries in 2022, political career is over!!!” The whole thing was so stressful for Thune that he seemed genuinely torn about whether to to run for re-election in 2022. His potential, if not probable, promotion to party leader two years later won him over.

So Trump allies on the right like Tucker Carlson and Elon Musk who pushed for Scott’s candidacy were not wrong to have trust issues with Thune. When Trump conducted an early loyalty check on the three nominees – insisting that they allow the Trump nominees to make recess appointments so they could withstand Senate scrutiny – Scott ended up being the only candidate who fully agreed, while the others left the question open as a possibility.

But Trump’s allies in the right-wing media are not voting for the leader. Senators do it, and Thune could do it lost If he had agreed to Trump’s plan to strip the Senate of its advisory and consent functions, he would have received fewer votes. Trump himself, at least, was wise to remain neutral in the race for Senate leadership, knowing that this was an internal battle in which his contribution would have limited impact and in which his instincts would have him to the point of embarrassment can bring.

However, the secret votes are now over. Both Trump and his allies will have ample opportunity to impose their will on the Senate in the future. It’s hard to believe, for example, that MAGA’s defeat in the Senate leadership race didn’t do that some This impacted Trump’s actions in the next few hours, as he nominated Tulsi Gabbard as director of national intelligence and Rep. Matt Gaetz as attorney general. These nominations represent a dramatic test of loyalty for the Republican Senate – both in terms of their confirmations and, if they fail, in the Senate’s willingness to adjourn to allow their recess appointments. It was a good morning for the old guard. Wednesday afternoon was her reminder that this is how things are changed.

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