John Thune, South Dakota Republican senator with a poor LGBTQ+ rights record, elected as majority leader

Republican U.S. Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, elected Senate majority leader Wednesday, brings a poor record on LGBTQ+ rights to his new post.

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Thune, currently minority whip, is considered an establishment Republican, in contrast to the party members who are close to Donald Trump. He has criticized Trump at times but has nonetheless supported him in his presidential runs and recently tried to mend fences with him.

He won the leadership position in a secret ballot, but insiders have disclosed the vote count to major media outlets. In the first round of voting, Thune received 23 votes, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas 15, and Sen. Rick Scott of Florida 13, sources told NBC News. This eliminated Scott, who was backed by several Trump allies who are not elected officials, such as X head Elon Musk, onetime presidential hopeful Vivek Ramaswamy, and former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, CNN reports. In the second round, Thune beat Cornyn by 29 to 24, according to NBC’s sources.

Republicans will have a 53-47 majority in the new Senate, after having been in the minority previously. Thune’s position as majority leader will last for two years in the upcoming session of Congress, which officially begins January 3, of course unless he is ousted or steps down. Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, who had been the Republican Senate leader, had already announced he is leaving leadership but remaining a senator.

Thune, a member of the U.S. House from 1997 to 2005 and a senator afterward, has mostly zeroes on the Human Rights Campaign’s Congressional Scorecard, which measures support for LGBTQ+ equality. He has scored points occasionally for actions such as supporting Pete Buttigieg’s confirmation as secretary of Transportation and voting for the President’s Emergency Program for AIDS Relief, or PEPFAR. He did not vote for 2022’s Respect for Marriage Act, which wrote marriage equality into federal law.

He is against abortion rights, saying on his Senate website, “As a member of Congress, I have a 100 percent pro-life voting record and have consistently supported a ban on abortion.” He is opposed to gun control, saying there must be “robust due process protections to guard against any policies that would suspend or curtail someone's lawful Second Amendment right.” He has typical Republican positions on immigration, energy, and economics.

He has sometimes broken with Trump. In 2016, after the Access Hollywood tape came out in which Trump boasted of grabbing women by their genitals, Thune said Trump should drop out of the presidential race. That didn’t happen, and Thune later said he would vote for Trump.

He rejected Trump’s lie that the 2020 election was stolen from him and condemned the actions of January 6, 2021, when Trump supporters stormed the U.S. Capitol in an effort to stop the certification of Joe Biden’s election as president. But when Trump was impeached over the Capitol riots, Thune and most other Republican senators voted not guilty.

Trump urged South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to run against Thune in the Republican Senate primary in 2022, but she declined. Thune easily won reelection. Last year, Thune announced his support for Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina for the 2024 Republican presidential nomination, but “as it became clear that Trump would capture the GOP nomination for a third straight time, Thune sought to mend relations with the former president,” CNN reports. He met with Trump at Mar-a-Lago in March and with the heads of his transition team, Howard Lutnick and Linda McMahon, this month.

“I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House,” Thune said in a statement. “This Republican team is united behind President Trump’s agenda, and our work starts today.”