Opposition to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell is quickly becoming an issue in Republican primaries as insurgent conservatives jockey for advantage.
This week, Alaska’s Kelly Tshibaka became at least the fourth Republican Senate contender to announce she would not support McConnell for leader if she defeats incumbent GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski and wins a Senate seat in 2022. Kelly has been endorsed by former President Donald Trump, who has been imploring Senate Republicans to oust McConnell. Her opposition to the minority leader follows the well-worn path of other Republicans backed by Trump or hoping to win his endorsement.
“It’s time for new, America First leadership in the Senate,” Tshibaka said in a statement. In a subsequent interview with former Trump adviser Steve Bannon on his War Room podcast, Tshibaka blamed McConnell for enabling President Joe Biden and policies she characterized as anti-American.
“Mitch McConnell thinks we’re stupid,” she said. “He’s anything but a leader.”
With that announcement, Kelly joined three other Republican contenders who have declared they will oppose McConnell, 79, for leader of the GOP conference if they are elected to the Senate in the midterm elections: in Alabama, Rep. Mo Brooks, who has been endorsed by Trump, and in Missouri and Oklahoma, respectively, former Gov. Eric Greitens and businessman Jackson Lahmeyer, both of whom hope to score an endorsement from the former president.
If securing Trump’s support is the goal in a competitive primary, opposing McConnell is not necessarily a bad move. The former president issues frequent statements criticizing McConnell for not being tougher on Biden. But Trump’s real beef with the Senate minority leader involves the 2020 election.
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Trump turned on McConnell because the Kentucky Republican would not support his claims that the presidential election was stolen. “Mitch McConnell is giving the Democrats victory on everything. What is wrong with this Broken Old Crow?” Trump said in a statement emailed to reporters on Sunday. “He’s hurting the Republican Senators and the Republican Party. When will they vote him out of Leadership?”
The answer to Trump’s question, most likely, is “never.” There are a host of reasons.
To begin with, most of McConnell’s 49 fellow Senate Republicans are pleased with his performance and his strategies for dealing with Biden and Senate Democrats. Additionally, leadership positions are less coveted than in past generations. The sort of populist Republican that might satisfy Trump is unlikely to be interested in the job and making the tough decisions it requires, even if he or she could earn the support of a majority of the conference.
The minority leader also has a formidable political machine that Republican senators enjoy having on their side; they include his super PAC, the Senate Leadership Fund, and its affiliated political nonprofit organization, One Nation. Both groups typically spend more than $100 million every election cycle to protect incumbent Republican senators. These groups also intervene in open primaries in general elections, which is why many GOP candidates running for Senate may choose not to oppose McConnell.
Indeed, even in Ohio, where a crowded field of GOP contenders is vying to succeed retiring Republican Sen. Rob Portman, insurgent conservatives such as Josh Mandel, the former state treasurer, and J.D. Vance, an author and venture capitalist, have both declined to express opposition to McConnell. In media interviews, both have conspicuously avoided suggesting, let alone declaring, that they would vote against him for leader if they are sworn into the Senate in 2023.
“I’m not going to entertain hypothetical situations that don’t even exist in reality,” Mandel told the Wall Street Journal in September when asked if he planned to support McConnell for leader. On Tuesday, Mandel’s campaign said the candidate’s position has not changed and pointed the Washington Examiner to these nearly three-month-old comments. Mandel is a strong Trump supporter who backs the former president’s claims about the 2020 election.
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This might sound like a dodge from Mandel, but he has a point. Running for Senate leader, even in instances in which the top Democrat or Republican is going to be the majority leader, is not the same as running for House speaker. The vote is held behind closed doors, not on the Senate floor, and all McConnell has to do to retain his job is win a majority of Republicans, versus a majority of the 100-seat chamber.
Since just after the 2006 elections, every time McConnell has run for Republican leader, no GOP senator challenged him, and he was chosen for the top spot by acclamation.
