Sen. John Thune (R-SD) blasted out his praise of President-elect Donald Trump and Senate Republicans’ agenda ahead of the vote for the next leader of the upper chamber.
Thune is running for Senate majority leader in a three-way race against Sens. Rick Scott (R-FL) and John Cornyn (R-TX). In an op-ed published in Fox News, Thune laid out his plans for the GOP-controlled Senate where Republicans have a “mandate to govern.”
“We cannot afford to take this coalition for granted. If we fail to deliver on President Trump’s priorities, we will lose their support,” he wrote. “They have trusted us with their votes. Now we have to roll up our sleeves and get to work.”
Thune hinted at how he would plot the course for the Senate under his leadership, including ensuring Trump “has the necessary tools and support to enforce border security laws and to remove the violent criminals wreaking havoc in every state” and taking “a hatchet to the regulatory apparatus choking our economy.”
He still said undoing work from the “Biden-Harris-Schumer Democrats is not enough.”
“We have an ambitious agenda, and it will take all of us — each and every Republican — working together with President Trump’s leadership to achieve it,” Thune wrote. “If we don’t successfully execute on our mandate, we risk losing the coalition that swept Republicans into office up and down the ballot.”
Thune said the GOP “will have disagreements along the way” but that when those disagreements arise, the party “must listen to each other and keep working toward serving the people who gave us this mandate.”
“The Democrat Party will shun or cancel anyone who challenges liberal orthodoxy,” Thune wrote. “This Republican Party listens to our voters and celebrates the marketplace of ideas.”
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Typically, the fight for the Senate’s reins is an internal affair, though this iteration has been spilling over into the public sphere. Thune and his rivals don’t have to convince voters to support them, as only senators-elect and returning senators can cast their support for someone to lead the upper chamber.
However, over the weekend, several Trump allies tried to turn up the pressure on voters to contact their senators and tell them to cast a vote for Scott. The Florida senator emerged as a last-minute contender for the role but is also considered the staunchest Trump ally in the running.