United States Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) announced yesterday that he’ll be stepping down as Senate GOP leader this November after 18 years leading the conference. His announcement marks the end of an era in the Senate – and kicks off an internal fight to be the chamber’s next top Republican.
Most attention thus far has focused on the “three Johns”: Senators John Cornyn (R-Texas), John Thune (R-South Dakota), and John Barrasso (R-Wyoming), all of whom serve or recently served in Senate GOP leadership. Other senators from outside the current leadership structure are also considered possible contenders.
New Jersey’s two sitting senators, Democrats Cory Booker and Bob Menendez, don’t have much at stake in the internal Republican contest. Regardless of whether Democrats win or lose the Senate this November, they’re set to continue supporting current Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to lead their caucus.
The embattled Menendez’s Senate seat is up for election this year, though, and a large field of Republicans are running to win a New Jersey Senate race for the first time since 1972. The New Jersey Globe asked the top three Republican Senate candidates for their thoughts on the contest to replace McConnell; all three were noncommittal, but said they wanted a Senate leader who will work with them to fight for New Jersey.
“I support this timely decision by Senator McConnell,” Mendham Borough Mayor Christine Serrano Glassner said. “Who will get my support as the next GOP leader in the Senate depends on who’s going to help me deliver for the hard-working families of New Jersey. They are struggling mightily with extraordinary inflation, crime, and drugs in the Biden-Menendez-Murphy era. I’m going to Washington to fight for them and my expectations of the next leader will be very high.”
South Jersey developer Curtis Bashaw similarly said that he’d be open to a variety of candidates to be the next Senate Majority Leader. (Or, theoretically, Senate Minority Leader, but there’s realistically no way Republicans manage to win a Senate seat in New Jersey this year but fall short of the Senate majority.)
“There are a lot of serious considerations that go into choosing the next leader of the Senate in November, and hopefully our country will be looking at a Republican majority going into 2025,” Bashaw said. “I look forward to getting to know my future GOP Senate colleagues and voting for the best candidate who can represent us on issues such as border security, a strong national economy, and ensuring freedom for all Americans.”
The only one to float any specific possible contenders was former News12 reporter Alex Zdan, who wrote on Twitter that the idea of putting forward Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), a libertarian-minded senator and a frequent thorn in the side of GOP leadership, was “very interesting.” Zdan told the New Jersey Globe, though, that he was supportive of any Republican leader willing to work with him on key New Jersey priorities.
“Senator McConnell was right about one thing: it was high time for him to move on. It’s time for a new generation of conservative leaders,” Zdan said. “The kind of new Senate leader I would back should be committed to small government principles and working on important New Jersey issues like restoring our full SALT deduction and keeping construction funding for the Gateway Project on track.”
On the other side of the aisle, the top two Democrats running for Menendez’s seat, Rep. Andy Kim (D-Moorestown) and First Lady Tammy Murphy, both said during a New Jersey Globe Senate debate earlier this month that they would support Schumer to continue leading the Democratic caucus.
Given New Jersey’s strong Democratic lean, Kim or Murphy is much more likely to have a say in future Senate leadership contests than Serrano Glassner, Bashaw, Zdan, or any of the other Republicans running for Senate. But if one of those Republicans does somehow pull off the upset, the race for Senate leader might have to take on a Jersey angle.