Live Updates: House and Senate Republicans hold leadership elections

Thune was sympathetic on Monday to the efforts to come together on a path forward after the bruising midterm elections, and said that the decision over whether to delay the leadership elections would ultimately come down to his conference.

Thune said he was open to hearing the arguments for delaying the votes.

“But like I said, it’s going to be a decision that’s ultimately made by Republican senators,” he said. “We’ll hear them out.”

“I think in the end, I think it’s important that for purposes of moving forward, that we get some of these issues settled as soon as possible,” Thune told CBS News Monday. “We’ll see what our members think tomorrow.”

GOP Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, who’s leading a push to delay the Republican leadership elections, outlined where things stood on Monday night, telling reporters that leadership had agreed to hold a conference meeting at 9 a.m. on Tuesday, “and we’ll see how convincing those of us are who believe we should delay leadership elections.”

When asked whether there needs to be new leadership, Johnson said Senate Republicans “just can’t continue on business as usual” after a “stunning defeat” in the midterm elections.

“I mean, that kind of defeat demands change,” he said. 

Johnson conceded that there isn’t a clear alternative to follow him as leader, saying, “That’s part of our problem. Who’d want the job?” But he argued that at a minimum, Senate Republicans need to hear from their leadership team about the strategy moving forward. 

“You need to have some real soul searching, some robust discussion, and give people a chance to consider, ‘maybe I want to run for some leadership position,’ and then give them a chance to talk to their colleagues to try and develop support,” Johnson said. “You can’t do that, you know, a week out of Washington, come back the next day. I mean, it’s obnoxious.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson told reporters Monday night that Republicans can’t delay their leadership elections because new members are in Washington for orientation and “it’s just not something that logistically we could do.” 

“These dates were published in advance and everybody knew it. I suppose if you’re running for an office, you’d always want more time to do that,” Johnson said. “But the reason we can’t change the date is because all this was set in stone, and we have all the new members here, and we’re doing all the member orientation. If we delayed leadership elections, that interferes in all of that.” 

“There’s a lot of logistics that goes into all that,” he added. 

Earlier Monday, GOP Rep. Jason Smith of Missouri, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee, argued that the elections should be delayed so that the conference could address rules that have allowed a small group of Republicans to hold up legislative activity throughout the past two years. 

“Failing to address these issues before choosing someone new to lead our Conference is doing a disservice to whoever we choose as Republican Leader,” he said. “We should delay our Leadership elections until we decide how to hold each other accountable and what our path forward should be. Our rules must never again permit a Leader to be taken hostage to the whims of an individual member.” 

Senate Republicans are scheduled to meet Tuesday morning as several GOP senators have pushed to delay their leadership elections.

Led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, a small group of Republicans signed onto a letter seeking to compel a conference meeting and vote on delaying the elections before moving forward. Senate Majority Leader John Thune told reporters on Monday that Republicans will “have a conversation” before seeing where the conference stands on holding the leadership elections.

“I do think that we need to have a very fulsome, robust conversation about where we go from here, and then we’ll see what the consensus of the conference is,” Thune said. “I mean, ultimately, that’s a decision that will be made by Republican senators sometime tomorrow.”

Thune is expected to be reelected as leader, and no Senate Republicans have launched a challenge to his leadership. The South Dakota Republican said he was open to hearing the arguments for delaying the leadership election, adding, “I don’t know if that solves anything.” But he reiterated that the decision would come down to the GOP conference. 

House Republicans are set to meet at 9 a.m. to begin considering their next leadership team. 

House GOP leadership could see the most significant change among the parties in both chambers after House Speaker Mike Johnson bowed out of leading the conference in the minority. 

Johnson’s move leaves Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and Rep. Jim Jordan of Ohio, the House Judiciary Committee chairman, to jockey for minority leader. 

“We have two extraordinary guys that are running to lead the conference. I’m close to both of them, and we’ll see how that shakes out,” Johnson said Monday. 

Rep. August Pfluger of Texas is challenging Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota for the position of minority whip. 

Republican Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan has two opponents — Reps. Erin Houchin of Indiana and Greg Steube of Florida. 

House Speaker Mike Johnson did not explicitly commit to serving out the full two-year term for which he won reelection last week. 

“We’re focused on finishing the 119th [Congress] strong. We’re going to do that. I’m still in charge here till early January, and we’re going to do our duty. And after that, my commitment and my objective is to help my team ensure that the Republican Party has a very successful 120th Congress, and we’ll see how all that develops, and that’s my commitment,” the Louisiana Republican told reporters Monday night.