Republican senators are rallying to support Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) after the GOP failed to win the Senate in the midterm elections.
Several GOP senators have called for the leadership election to be delayed until the runoff election in Georgia has been completed. This is because depending on the results of the Georgia election there could be 49 or 50 Republican Senators. The Republican leadership election was set for Wednesday.
National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman Rick Scott (Fla.), who is tightly allied with former President Trump, has so far failed to convince GOP members that the election should be postponed. This is a sign that McConnell has managed to retain his control over Senate Republicans.
Scott has not pressed for the election to be postponed, nor has he announced whether he would be challenging McConnell, despite having meetings with the rest of the leadership team. GOP senators have said that they would be discussing what went wrong in the midterm election during a lunch meeting on Tuesday.
Some senior Republicans have considered Trump’s role in the midterm elections detrimental. They also noted that it led to many more Democrats voting, despite President Biden having low approval ratings. They have also claimed he was a key reason for the GOP losses in Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
Retiring Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) last week stated that Trump was to blame for the loss in his state which allowed the Democrats to flip one senate seat as celebrity doctor Mehmet Oz (R) lost to Lt. Gov. John Fetterman (D). He also noted that this was the case not only in Pennsylvania but across the country where MAGA candidates lost their elections.
