Congress
How John Thune is trying to save the Senate for Republicans
McALLEN, Texas — John Thune is ramping up his sales pitch as he tries to turn the GOP’s attention toward November and keeping the Senate majority.
But as the majority leader campaigned along the U.S.-Mexico border Friday with a coalition of Republicans up for reelection this year, he acknowledged challenges so far in promoting the legislative centerpiece of the party’s message — not to mention what he called the midterm “headwinds” facing any party in power.
Thune is betting that an aggressive campaign blitz between now and the fall, and a hopefully burgeoning economy, will help Republicans keep and potentially grow their 53-seat majority — even as voters seem indifferent about the GOP’s “big, beautiful bill” and President Donald Trump struggles in sticking to a kitchen-table script.
Having Republicans back home touting the party line, Thune said, will help.
“Last year, our members were in many cases, for obvious reasons, in Washington, trying to get the job done,” Thune said in an interview. “But now that we’re in an even-numbered year and people are out running for reelection, I think having us as a body focus very directly on the message that we’re delivering to the American people is going to make a big difference.”
He also acknowledged that Democrats leapt out of the gate last year in hammering the GOP megabill even before it was finished, adding that “they have the advantage of being the opposition party.”
On Friday, Thune & Co. attempted to turn the tide by highlighting the border security resources that were included in the sprawling policy package that also included tax cuts, defense spending and energy initiatives, among other legislative potpourri.
Republicans started out the 2026 cycle as odds-on favorites for keeping control of the Senate. They still have an edge, according to most forecasters. But Democrats have made a dent in the GOP’s advantage by securing big-name recruits in key races as Republicans face some heated and costly intraparty primaries.
Success will depend in large part on the Republicans who joined Thune Friday in Texas. Michael Whatley, who is running to succeed North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis, and former Rep. Mike Rogers, who is looking to flip the seat held by retiring Democratic Sen. Gary Peters in Michigan, joined several in-cycle GOP incumbents, including Texas Sen. John Cornyn.
Thune showered particular praise on Cornyn, who is fighting for his political life in a three-way primary. Underscoring the nasty internal fight facing the GOP, rival Ken Paxton — the state attorney general and one of Cornyn’s primary opponents — accused Cornyn of trying to “rewrite history” with the border trip and predicted that his career will end in “national embarrassment.”
Thune’s effort to use his bully pulpit to focus on the party’s legislative accomplishments comes as Republicans continue to fret that they haven’t done enough to sell the megabill. Many wonder in hindsight whether their decision to pack so many priorities together into a single piece of legislation — a decision driven in part by the party-line budget reconciliation process — was ill-conceived.
“We’ve talked about that,” Sen. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) said in an interview Friday on the sidelines of a news conference at the border wall where it took four placards to display all the highlights from the megabill.
“Secure Border, More Money, New Opportunities,” read a sign on the podium summarizing the legislation.
But an overstuffed domestic policy bill is far from the top concern for Republicans who remain nervous about addressing Americans’ anxieties about the steeply rising cost of living.
While many GOP leaders spent the final months of 2025 vowing to focus on affordability issues — and Thune vowed Friday Republicans would in 2026 — the opening days of the year have been focused abroad after Trump ousted Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro. The military action sparked a fiery debate in Congress about presidential war powers that threaten to blot out other matters.
“It’s certainly going to consume the news cycle for a while,” said Sen. John Hoeven of North Dakota in an interview in the Capitol this week.
It certainly has preoccupied Trump, who lashed out at five Senate Republicans who joined with Democrats Thursday to advance a measure constraining his future military moves in Venezuela. One of them, Susan Collins of Maine, is up for reelection, and Trump announced publicly that she and the other four “should never be elected to office again.”
Thune said he had a “very spirited” conversation with Trump before he delivered the attacks and acknowledged his frustrations. But Thune said he was focused on keeping Republicans “united as much as possible and work[ing] with the president.”
The two are viewed as having a good personal relationship, with Trump publicly praising Thune throughout 2025 — a transformation from just a few years before, when Trump threatened to back a primary challenger against the South Dakotan. Thune, in turn, repeatedly praised Trump and his work on the border Friday.
That doesn’t mean they don’t have their differences. Thune, with the backing of his conference, has rebuffed Trump’s demands to nix the filibuster and other Senate norms that preserve minority power. They have also clashed on policy — most conspicuously on the president’s aggressive use of tariffs which have negatively impacted farmers in Thune’s home state.
Thune acknowledged they sometimes don’t see eye-to-eye but added he views his job as needing to “protect the institution … maintain it as the founders intended as a check and balance.”
Thune reiterated Friday that he’s labored to hash out most of those differences behind the scenes, seeking to avoid any public blowups that would suck up political oxygen and potentially force his members to choose sides.
That said, he added, “there are times, yes, where you have to push back” — pointing back to the conversation on the war powers resolution, which Thune opposed.
Pushing back could be trickier in an election year, when Republicans need to be in lockstep as they make their case for another two years in power on Capitol Hill while Trump seeks to lock in a presidential legacy and otherwise enforce his will over the party.
Beyond dealing with Trump’s angry outburst, Thune is trying to keep the party — and the president — singing from the same hymnal heading into November.
“Obviously, yesterday he was frustrated, but I think there’s going to be a lot to point to in terms of a record of accomplishment for him and for him working with us,” Thune said of Trump. “As we get out there and talk about it, I think it’ll start to change the perceptions and the views in the public.”
Alex Gangitano contributed to this report.
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and his leadership team announced they are eyeing punishment for two House Democrats who bucked their party Tuesday.
Reps. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Jared Golden of Maine broke with leadership to advance a key procedural vote that revived Republicans’ legislative agenda. The incredibly rare crossing of party lines incensed many House Democrats and top leaders who were then forced to vote on a slate of GOP priorities.
“The decision by two of our colleagues to blindside the entire House Democratic Caucus and join with the Republican majority to pass a procedural rule on the brink of failing represents a significant breach of trust,” Jeffries said in a statement with Whip Katherine Clark of Massachusetts and Pete Aguilar of California. “It is an action that necessitates a serious response, and we have asked the Committee on Caucus Rules to take this up in short order.”
Spokespeople for Golden and Gluesenkamp Perez did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Golden told reporters Tuesday he backed the measure because it provided for passage of a bill he cosponsored benefiting lobstermen in his home state while delaying the implementation of fishing regulations meant to protect the North Atlantic right whale population.
House leadership has a number of disciplinary levers at their disposal, including stripping members of committees. When Blue Light News asked Jeffries Tuesday evening if he was considering consequences for the two rogue members, he said, “We haven’t ruled anything in, and we haven’t ruled anything out.”
Eight House Democrats defected Tuesday over a measure condemning socialism and calling for an election security crackdown — the latest example of the ongoing intraparty tensions around the rise of far-left progressives.
The Democrats voted with every House Republican on the resolution their leaders opposed on grounds it endorsed enactment of the SAVE America Act, President Donald Trump’s biggest legislative priority that would implement onerous voter identification laws.
Ahead of the vote, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York issued a statement calling the resolution a “MAGA effort to rig the midterm elections.”
The message didn’t resonate with the following Democratic Reps., many of whom consider themselves moderates and are fighting tough reelection campaigns:
Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Marie Gluesenkamp Perez of Washington and Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico, alongside Vicente Gonzalez and Henry Cuellar of Texas and Kathy Castor and Darren Soto of Florida.
Reps. Maggie Goodlander of New Hampshire and Chrissy Houlahan of Pennsylvania voted “present.”
“I don’t agree with socialism and I don’t have a major problem with voter ID,” Gonzalez told reporters after the vote.
“Socialism. I don’t know. I’m from the 80s. Socialism is not a good word for us, right?” he added. “And it just never worked. And I think that most Americans don’t agree with some of those proposals.”
Other centrist Democrats opposed the measure, including Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey, who railed against the provision expressing support for the SAVE America Act.
Joined by fellow moderate Democratic Reps. Hillary Scholten of Michigan, Jared Moskowitz of Florida and Tom Suozzi of New York, Gottheimer sought consideration of an amendment that would have stripped out the elections bill provision — suggesting they would have been willing to condemn socialism without it.
“If you really look at it, it’s just the SAVE Act with a wrapper on it,” Gottheimer told reporters Monday. “They’re just running the SAVE Act again, which we’ve already — that’s asked and answered. We’ve been through this play. They’re not actually interested in getting people on the record on whether socialists are part of the Democratic Party.”
The amendment was not approved to receive a vote on the House floor.
CORRECTION: A previous version of this report misspelled a Democratic representative’s name.
The House moved Tuesday to censure Rep. Chuck Edwards for sexually harassing young female staffers in his office.
The 413-2 vote was an overwhelming rebuke to the North Carolina Republican, who chose last month to forgo reelection following the release of a damning House Ethics Committee report detailing his pattern of misconduct.
It also comes as Congress is grappling with how to protect aides from members’ bad behavior amid a rash of harassment and assault allegations against lawmakers on both sides of the aisle.
In Edwards’ case, the Ethics Committee found the lawmaker participated in “persistent unprofessional and inappropriate conduct towards two young female staffers” and made comments on the appearance of his aides, including on one staffer’s weight.
According to the report, Edwards gave the female aides purses, guns, shoes and flowers. Edwards skipped House votes one night to decorate a Christmas tree with a staffer and went drinking and gambling with her. The lawmaker recited a poem at her departure celebration and cried during it, making the staff uncomfortable, the committee said.
“Neither individual felt free to reject Rep. Edwards’ attention without fear of professional consequences,” said Rep. Mark Desaulnier of California, the top Democrat on the Ethics panel, during floor debate on the censure measure.
Edwards has denied wrongdoing, appealing to his colleagues last week in a lengthy letter to vote against the censure resolution. He argued “an affectionate friendship is not a sexual proposition. A gift is not sexual misconduct. A compliment is not sexual misconduct. Poetry is not sexual misconduct.”
He offered a similar defense in a floor speech Tuesday before the censure vote.
“I am imperfect,” Edwards said. “I have made mistakes, but I do not believe I committed sexual harassment and the factual findings of this investigation do not justify branding me as though I did.”
But Edwards did apologize to the staffers described in the report.
“I want to say something directly and publicly to the two women who have been at the center of all of this: I am sorry. I’m sorry that my actions, my judgement or the way that I expressed a friendship ever put either of you in an uncomfortable position,” Edwards said.
For many in the House Republican Conference, however, the report told them all they needed to know to inform their vote. Rep. Ben Cline of Virginia, for instance, said in advance of consideration of the censure resolution that he planned to support the measure because he “read the ethics report.”
Only Edwards and Rep. Ralph Norman (R-S.C.) ultimately voted “no.”
Edwards’ letter seeking sympathy from fellow lawmakers also did not have the desired effect.
“Clearly the man … did not understand the gravity of his actions, showed no remorse, and really exemplified why the work that we’re doing on sexual misconduct reform is so critical,” said Rep. Kat Cammack (R-Fla.) in an interview Tuesday.
She and Rep. Teresa Leger Fernández (D-N.M.) are working on bipartisan legislation to overhaul the congressional ethics process — including instituting new rules for how members are allowed to interact with congressional aides and establishing a more consistent rubric for how members should be punished for specific offenses.
“The training has to be improved,” Cammack said. “I think Chuck Edwards proves that.”
Censure is the most severe punishment the Ethics Committee can recommend short of expulsion, and amounts to a public shaming on the House floor with no further threat of disciplinary action.
It used to be a rare occurrence in the House, with a long gap between the early 1980s — when late-Reps. Daniel Crane and Gerry Studds were censured for sexual misconduct with a House page — and 2010, when late-Rep. Charlie Rangel was censured for inaccurate financial reports and federal tax returns, among other actions.
Censure resolutions have, more recently, become more frequent fixtures of House activity, though not typically as a result of House Ethics Committee investigations.
In 2021, Democrats sought to censure Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.) for posting a manipulated social media video of him appearing to kill a likeness of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and attack then-President Joe Biden. The vote was 223-207 with two Republicans supporting the measure — former Reps. Adam Kinzinger of Illinois and Rep. Liz Cheney of Wyoming.
A series of Republican-led censure measures were then brought in 2023 against three Democrats. Then-Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who is now a member of the Senate, was censured for “misleading the American public.” Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan was censured for allegations that she “promot[ed] false narratives regarding the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel and for calling for the destruction of the state of Israel” — an issue that prompted 22 Democrats to join GOP lawmakers in support.
Former Rep. Jamaal Bowman of New York was subject to censure for pulling the fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building during a vote his party wanted to delay. Bowman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor offense and paid a fine.
The most recent censure vote was in 2025, when Republicans sought to punish Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) for protesting in the middle of President Donald Trump’s joint address to Congress.
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