Senator Rick Scott was poised to challenge Mitch McConnell — until it became clear Republicans may not capture the majority.
For nearly two years, former President Donald Trump has demanded Senate Republicans dump Mitch McConnell as their leader but has never offered an alternative.
He would have been virtually certain to lose. But Scott’s challenge was not so much aimed at unseating the longtime Senate Republican leader as it was channeling the anger of grassroots conservatives, and the former president, who were peeved at McConnell’s criticism of the “candidate quality” of this year’s roster of Senate GOP candidates.
Scott’s abandoned coup may represent the final rupture in a relationship that dates to the 1990s, when the Floridian was living in Louisville, Ky., and was a McConnell donor while the chief executive at HCA, the hospital chain.loathe the Senate GOP leader, who is poised in next year’s Congress to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history.
“He’s decided he doesn’t want to be an inside player in the Senate, so he had nothing to lose,” said one establishment-aligned Republican senator about Scott’s aborted plans. “It wouldn’t have mattered if he got five, 10 or 15 votes – he was showing off to the base.” It was a departure for Trump, who for all his agitating against McConnell has rarely floated alternatives by name.
Scott likely could have counted on the support of Senator Josh Hawley of Missouri, with whom he shares a political consulting firm, OnMessage. Hawley used an election eve rally with Sen.-elect Eric Schmitt in Springfield, Mo, to reveal his opposition to McConnell as leader, but made clear he hadn’t yet heard from other contenders.
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