Senate Republicans voted 31-15 to proceed to their leadership election, effectively rejecting an attempt by conservatives to delay their leadership election.
The vote, which took place during a closed-door conference meeting Tuesday, comes after a group of conservatives — led by Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin — pushed to delay the election to give GOP senators more time to talk through the results of last week’s walloping in the midterms.
But Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is expected to be elected to lead the party in the minority next year, questioned what would be gained by delaying the election, with no other Republicans raising their hand to run against him. Senior Republicans predicted the effort would be defeated.
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