Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, has endorsed former president Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary.<\/p>\n
His endorsement comes a day after Trump defeated his last remaining GOP opponent, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, in her home state\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n
Thune, the Senate minority whip, told Fox News Digital that the results in South Carolina \u201cmake clear that Donald Trump will be the Republican nominee for president in this year\u2019s pivotal presidential election.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe choice before the American people is crystal clear: It\u2019s Donald Trump or Joe Biden,\u201d Thune said. \u201cI support former president Trump\u2019s campaign to win the presidency, and I intend to do everything I can to see that he has a Republican majority in the Senate working with him.\u201d<\/p>\n
Thune is the highest-ranking Republican in the Senate to endorse Trump\u2019s presidential bid.<\/p>\n
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) has not endorsed the former president, whom he drifted apart from after the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. Thune, who is widely considered to be a possible successor to McConnell in the Senate, had previously endorsed the presidential bid of Sen. Tim Scott (R-S.C.), but Scott dropped out of the race in November and has endorsed Trump.<\/p>\n
Trump, meanwhile, had called for Thune to have a primary challenger when Thune ran for reelection in 2022, calling the senator a \u201cRepublican in name only.\u201d Trump had long attacked Thune and McConnell after the two refused to support the former president\u2019s efforts to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election.<\/p>\n
Thune, however, went on to win reelection easily, winning the GOP primary by over 50 points and the general election by nearly 45 points. He\u2019s not up for reelection again until 2028.<\/p>\n
Thune\u2019s decision to back Trump despite the animosity between the two adds pressure to McConnell, who has long declined to get involved in the GOP\u2019s presidential nominating contest.<\/p>\n
In January, McConnell told reporters that he has \u201cstayed essentially out of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I change my mind about that I\u2019ll let you know,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, has endorsed former president Donald Trump in the GOP presidential primary. His endorsement comes a day after Trump defeated his last remaining GOP opponent, former U.N. ambassador and South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, in her home state\u2019s primary. Thune, the Senate minority whip, told […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":1466,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1465","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1465"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1465\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1465"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1465"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstriumphs.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1465"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}