Republican leaders are fighting to keep their power on Capitol Hill Tuesday after stunning midterm losses last week.
The House and Senate GOP are poised to hold separate elections Tuesday to decide who will serve as the top Republicans in the next Congress. The winners are expected to immediately start charting a course back to governing relevance after Democrats gained the largest majorities won by any party in decades and voters delivered a firm rebuke of President Donald Trump.
How it’ll go: House Republicans will hold a candidate forum at 9 a.m. to hear from members running for all leadership positions, and a secret ballot will begin at 1:30 p.m.
Senate Republicans will meet at 9 a.m. It’s unclear how long their forum will continue — with some members pushing for a vote to delay the election to give more time for deliberations. But senior Republicans expect that push to fail and to know who will lead the conference by the end of the day.
What to expect: The House elections will pit existing Republican leaders vying to keep their top spots against insurgents who are hoping to capitalize on a desire from some for a clean slate.
Speaker Mike Johnson is bowing out, leaving Majority Leader Steve Scalise and Judiciary Chair Jim Jordan to battle it out for the No. 1 perch.
Jordan is pledging a fresh look for the House GOP’s top echelon and has swiped at Johnson and Scalise for having too often “operated without a clear plan to survive the hour or the day in front of us.”
Scalise is seeking to fend off the throw-the-bums-out sentiment by drawing on his experience as a fundraiser and a set of personal relationships he has closely tended for years.
Thune appears to be on a path to reelection today as Senate GOP leader, despite calls from a handful of senators, like Sen. Ron Johnson for a delay. One benchmark to watch: Sixteen Republicans voted for a similar delay in 2022, when Mitch McConnell sought his final term as leader.
Thune said Monday Republicans will be given plenty of space to talk through how they are feeling after the midterms. He’s pitching himself as ready to lead the conference amid an uncertain final two years of the Trump administration and a lot of 2028 jockeying.
“The job is not for the faint of heart, for sure,” Thune told POLITICO on Monday. “But I feel like I’ve got something to offer and to contribute … as we think about now having to chart a slightly new direction.”
What else we’re watching:
— GOP BUCKS TRUMP ON NVIDIA: Senior Republican lawmakers are considering investigating Nvidia over CEO Jensen Huang’s affair with an alleged Chinese spy, putting Trump’s strong defense of the tech titan at odds with mounting scrutiny from members of his own party. GOP chairs of the House Foreign Affairs, Intelligence and China committees are asking Huang to appear at a closed-door briefing next week that could lay the groundwork for an investigation into Nvidia. Other Republicans are now calling for Congress or other federal authorities to launch probes into Huang’s conduct and Nvidia’s broader dealings with China, arguing the situation is a serious national security risk.
— PERMITTING DEAL DEBATE LAUNCHES: The lead senators negotiating an energy permitting deal are now promising a “healthy amendment process” after the legislation cleared an initial hurdle Monday. Nearly all Senate Republicans and more than a dozen Democrats voted yesterday to advance the bipartisan permitting reform bill. Several of the Democrats who voted to advance the legislation were still critical of it — with some like Sens. Chuck Schumer and Catherine Cortez Masto pushing for further changes to the bill as the voting process continues.
Mia McCarthy, Jordain Carney, Christine Mui, Ari Hawkins, Gabby Miller, Sophia Cai, Owen Dahlkamp, Katherine Long and Nico Portuondo contributed to this report.
