Senator-elect Katie Britt released a statement praising the group of freshmen Republican Senators entering the U.S. Senate following the Senate Republican Caucus’s meeting and leadership elections on Wednesday.
“Our incoming freshman class of Republican senators represents the kind of fresh blood needed to help get our country back on the right track, and I’m going to bring that perspective to our caucus every single day,” Britt said in a statement. “I believe that having this spirited internal debate on how we can best fight to put American families first and defend our conservative values is good for our party and good for our country. Now, it’s time to move forward together as a united front determined to do everything in our power to stop President [Joe] Biden and his congressional allies from crushing hardworking Alabamians and Americans even further. The first step, and where our full focus must be, is helping Herschel Walker win in Georgia.”
The GOP Senate Caucus voted during the meeting to keep Sen. Mitch McConnell as the Senate Minority Leader. McConnell beat back a challenge from Sen. Rick Scott, who headed the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) during the recent midterm elections.
Senate Republicans are still shocked by their poor performance in the midterm elections that many pollsters had reported would go their way. The GOP lost close Senate elections in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Nevada that would have flipped control of the Senate to Republicans. Scott criticized McConnell for failure to articulate a Republican message prior to the election. Sens. Tom Cotton and John Barrasso nominated McConnell, while Sen. Ron Johnson nominated Scott.
“Every one of our candidates knew what they were for, expressed it quite clearly,” McConnell said. “It’s pretty obvious, and all of you have been writing about it, what happened. We underperformed among independents and moderates because their impression of many of the people in our party in leadership roles is that they’re involved in chaos, negativity, excessive attacks, and it frightened independent and moderate Republican voters.”
Some observers believed that McConnell was making a veiled reference to former President Donald Trump, who announced Tuesday night that he was once again running for the Republican nomination for President in the 2024 election.
Two McConnell-controlled outside groups, One Nation and the Republican Leadership fund spent $363 million on the midterm elections – significantly more than Scott and the NRSC.
McConnell won reelection as Senate GOP leader 37 to 10, with one member abstaining. Republican nominee for Senate Herschel Walker is in a December 6 runoff election with incumbent Sen. Raphael Warnock.
Despite the disappointing Senate performance, Republicans did win control of the U.S. House of Representatives. This means that Kevin McCarthy will likely replace Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House.
Britt defeated Democratic nominee Dr. Will Boyd and Libertarian John Sophocleus a week ago in the general election on November 8 to win the open Senate seat.
Clay Armentrout and Sean Ross are heading Britt’s transition team.
To connect with the author of this story, or to comment, email brandonmreporter@gmail.com.
