Ted Cruz Snubbed Fellow Texas Senator Cornyn in Majority Leadership Vote to Back Rick Scott; They Both Lost

Ted Cruz snubbed his fellow Texas Senator John Cornyn in the vote for the Upper House's majority leadership, favoring Florida's Rick Scott instead. Both of them lost their bids against South Dakota's John Thune.

Cornyn, who had been preparing for the post for years, building relationships and raising money, came in second, with Scott ending up at the bottom of the list. The senator cited his decades of fundraising when making his case on Tuesday night. However, neither his nor Scott's pitches were sufficient to gain them enough support as Thune got 29 votes on the second ballot, beating Cornyn's 24.

An anonymous source who witnessed the pitches told Fox News that Scott's pitch did not "sway" the senators, "He focused more on his time as a businessman instead of priorities for the Senate."

Cruz broke his silence just hours before the voting, joining a list of other prominent Republicans backing the Florida senator, including Elon Musk and Marco Rubio. "This morning, I'll be voting for Rick Scott for GOP Leader, as I did two years ago. In 2022, I helped lead the charge for Rick against McConnell & I'm proud to stand with him again.For 12 yrs, I've been unequivocal that we need to change GOP Leadership—and now we finally will," Cruz said.

In fact, Scott's approach, which also featured a heavy online campaign by prominent MAGA figures like Charlie Kirk and Tucker Carlson, seemingly caused infighting among Republicans in the Senate: one GOP aide told POLITICO this week that the initiative was "pissing off senators whose votes Rick needs." "Senators do not take kindly to having an army of social media trolls attack them," the aide added.

Tucker Carlson had said that "Rick Scott of Florida is the only candidate who agrees with Donald Trump" and urged his followers to "call your senator and demand a public endorsement of Rick Scott." Musk, on his end, held a poll on X during the weekend about the topic. Scott got almost two thirds of the more than 1 million votes in the survey.

Thune is now set to assume leadership in January after the retirement of Mitch McConnell.

"I am extremely honored to have earned the support of my colleagues to lead the Senate in the 119th Congress, and I am beyond proud of the work we have done to secure our majority and the White House," Thune said in a statement. "This Republican team is united behind President Trump's agenda, and our work starts today."