Sen. Rick Scott of Florida announced on Tuesday that he will make a long-shot attempt to unseat Mitch McConnell as the leader of the Senate Republican Party, opening the latest front in a struggle within the GOP between supporters of McConnell and those of former President Donald Trump over the party’s future in the wake of the party’s disappointing performance in last week’s midterm elections.
Scott’s declaration came hours before the former president was anticipated to begin his return campaign for the White House. Trump had urged Scott to take on McConnell. It intensified a long-running dispute over the party’s strategy for regaining a Senate majority between Scott and McConnell, who oversaw the Senate Republican campaign arm this year.
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Scott wrote a letter to Senate Republicans offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in Wednesday’s leadership elections. “If you merely want to continue with the existing quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott advised.
As well as his tight control over the Senate Republican caucus, McConnell has come under fire from disgruntled conservatives in the chamber for how he handled the election. The leadership vote was supposed to take place on Wednesday morning, but if Texas Senator Ted Cruz is successful in his bid to push it back until after a runoff election in Georgia in December, it may now be postponed.
In Georgia, where former NFL player Herschel Walker is facing Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski is up against a hardline candidate, a delay might give Trump-aligned conservatives more sway.
Given his strong support inside the conference, it doesn’t seem possible that their numbers will increase enough to endanger McConnell’s position. Trump’s resistance is also nothing new; the party has been clamoring to get rid of McConnell ever since the Senate majority leader delivered a stinging speech in which he blamed the previous president for the uprising at the U.S. Capitol on January 6.
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