Rick Scott won’t be the most important person in the U.S. Senate after all.
When he announced a run for Republican leader six months ago, few took Scott seriously. He’d already sought the position once and was handily defeated by Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky.
But a new groundswell of support from the conservative grassroots had some wondering whether he could pull an upset in a race that pitted him against Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Cornyn of Texas.
But according to Jake Sherman of the D.C. outlet Punchbowl News, Scott lost the race for leader on the first ballot Wednesday morning. Republican senators picked Thune.
The Senate Republican leader is traditionally the consummate insider. Scott’s supporters saw him as an insurgent running on structural changes to how the Senate functions. Many of President-elect Donald Trump’s most ardent supporters got behind him, from ultra-wealthy entrepreneur Elon Musk to conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. It’s likely the first time in history that the battle for Senate leadership has been waged, at least in part, online.
Here are a few key questions to get you caught up to speed on Scott’s unsuccessful campaign.
What was Rick Scott’s platform?
Scott was styling himself as the most MAGA leadership candidate.
“Senate Republican leadership should reflect the views and aspirations of Republican voters,” Scott wrote in a letter to colleagues in May.
The Senate is too driven by the whims of leadership, Scott argued. He pledged to be a more inclusive leader and to allow members to have more time to debate bills on the floor — particularly budget bills. His vision for the Senate represents a “dramatic sea change” in how the body functions, he told his colleagues.
Who were Rick Scott’s supporters?
Major influencers were lined up behind Scott: former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., conservative youth activist Charlie Kirk, Musk and Loomer, to name a few. (Scott found Loomer’s support so important that he appeared on her podcast the week before the presidential election — and his own reelection race.)
“Today is the last day before the Senate GOP leadership race which means it’s the last day for you to call your GOP senators and tell them to vote for Senator Rick Scott,” Loomer posted on X Tuesday.
The influencers’ calls to action appeared to be working. Senators had reportedly been getting messages from constituents for days in support of Scott. But not everyone enjoyed these communications. On Monday, Politico reported that some rank-and-file Republican senators had taken exception to the pro-Scott barrage.
Republican leader elections use secret ballots. The outside pressure campaign didn’t prove to be effective.
“It seems to be sort of a Hail Mary project,” said Joshua Huder, a senior fellow at Georgetown University’s Government Affairs Institute, of the influence campaign.
Chris Hartline, a senior Scott political adviser, said the senator’s team didn’t plan for the amount of conservative support he saw. Scott’s team is attributing the outpouring of support to Trump’s sweeping victory in the presidential election. His biggest fans wanted to see Trump’s policies in action, and they perceived Scott to be the biggest Trump supporter running for majority leader, Hartline said.
Who do other senators support?
Going into the vote, at least eight senators had come out publicly for Scott: Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, Rand Paul of Kentucky, Marco Rubio of Florida, Ted Cruz of Texas, Mike Lee of Utah, Bill Hagerty and Marsh Blackburn of Tennessee and Tommy Tuberville of Alabama.
Four others said they would support Thune, and one senator, Missouri’s Josh Hawley, has publicly backed Cornyn.
The vast majority of Republican senators had not made their preference clear, according to a tally by Punchbowl News.
But Wednesday morning, they quickly ousted Scott. He got 13 votes, compared to Cornyn’s 15 and Thune’s 23. Thune then defeated Cornyn on a second ballot.
What was working against Scott?
Not every conservative influencer got behind Scott. Dana Loesch, the pro-gun activist and former National Rifle Association spokesperson, criticized Scott for signing a gun control measure in the wake of the Parkland shooting as Florida governor in 2018. The bill limited gun sales to those 21 and older and created a “red flag” law designed to keep guns out of the hands of people deemed by a court to be a threat to those around them.
“We almost lost a big chunk … of our firearm rights, and Rick Scott was part of that,” Loesch said in a video posted to Facebook Monday.
But pushback from conservatives may have been the least of Scott’s problems.
Thune and Cornyn each have long track records of doing the kinds of things that leadership candidates typically do, Huder said. They help candidates win races. They gain allies over time. Cornyn and Thune have each been in the Senate for two decades.
Scott doesn’t have that same track record. Although Hartline noted that Scott’s spent significant time developing bonds with other senators, he’s only been in the chamber six years. His first spin at leadership in 2022, when he was in charge of the organization responsible for electing Republicans to the chamber, failed to net Republicans a majority in the Senate.
Senate leadership is a relationships business. Scott didn’t have enough of them.
Who is Trump backing in the race?
Trump never endorsed anyone. If he had, it could have upended the race.
But according to news reports, Trump never weighed in because he wasn’t certain Republicans in the Senate would heed his endorsement. The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo reported Monday that Trump has asked his advisers whether Scott can win. He didn’t seem to want to endorse a losing candidate.
This story was updated Wednesday with the results of the leadership vote.