EXCLUSIVE — Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) plans to walk out of the room if Republicans move forward with Senate leadership elections on Tuesday, calling it “obnoxious” that a vote is being held so quickly after their midterm wipeout.
“If you hold the election, I’ll leave the room,” Johnson told the Washington Examiner in a Monday sit-down interview. “I’m not going to participate in elections for leadership tomorrow.”
Johnson has gathered the five signatures needed to hold a Tuesday morning conference meeting to discuss Republicans’ losses last week. He will need a majority of his conference, however, to agree to delay the internal elections, which are cast by secret ballot and in recent cycles take place shortly after Election Day.
Johnson has previously ruled out challenging Senate Majority Leader John Thune (R-SD), who ascended to the post in 2024, but has received encouragement from conservatives to reconsider.
In the interview, Johnson said his request for a conference meeting was not a “hostile act” and that he’s not maneuvering to take on Thune. He was not definitive, though, when asked again if he’d run for leader on Monday.
“I don’t think so,” Johnson said. “It’s not my intention. I don’t want to be leader.”
He described his goal as giving Republicans space to consider if they want a change in leadership, and to assess what message voters were sending after Democrats picked up at least seven Senate seats last week. The outcome was big enough to flip control of the Senate and could make it difficult for Republicans to regain power for years to come.
“Leadership should at least give people an opportunity to consider it,” Johnson said, adding that his walk-out would be done “respectfully” and that he has nothing personal against Thune.
“We all like John Thune. We like him, OK?” Johnson said. “I don’t want to say anything bad about him, but again, at some point in time, our supporters absolutely believe we have to hold people accountable, and probably are looking for a new face, or new faces.”
Up until this point, Thune has not faced any serious challenge and still enjoys widespread support within his conference. He’s navigating a conservative upset, however, over the SAVE America Act, a voter ID bill that Democrats have successfully blocked using the 60-vote filibuster.
Individual members have also complained that too little was done to address affordability in the lead-up to the election, and that the GOP tax law and subsequent housing legislation weren’t enough.
Thune said on Monday that he was “open to hearing what the arguments are” on delaying the elections, but cast doubt that such a vote is productive.
“I don’t know if that solves anything,” Thune told reporters at the Capitol. “But like I said, it’s going to be a decision that’s ultimately made by Republican senators. So, we’ll hear them out.”
In broad strokes, Johnson already has a theory of why Republicans lost the election, blaming the war in Iran, the uncertainty surrounding tariffs, and the Trump administration’s failure to keep the Make America Healthy Again movement in the GOP fold.
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His assessment generally points back to actions taken by the Trump administration, and he did not shy away entirely from criticizing the president on Monday.
“I think there’s plenty of blame to go around,” Johnson said, “but I mean, the president was the one out there saying, ‘Pretend I’m on the ballot,’ and people did, and we see the result.”
Ramsey Touchberry contributed to this report.