The announcement by Scott, who was tapped to challenge McConnell by Trump, came hours before the former president was expected to launch a comeback bid for the White House. It escalated a long-running feud between Scott, who led the Senate Republican campaign this year, and McConnell over the party’s approach to reclaiming the Senate majority. “If you just want to stick with the status quo, don’t vote for me,” Scott said in a letter to Senate Republicans, offering himself as a protest vote against McConnell in Wednesday’s leadership election. Concerned conservatives in the chamber have criticized McConnell’s handling of the election, as well as his iron grip on the Senate Republican caucus. The leadership vote had been scheduled for Wednesday morning, though it could be postponed if Texas Sen. Ted Cruz succeeds in his bid to delay it until after Georgia’s runoff election in December. A delay could give leverage to Trump-aligned conservatives who hope their influence will increase after the outcome of the races in Georgia, where former NFL star Herschel Walker is challenging Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, and Alaska, where he faces moderate Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski. a conservative challenger. However, it seems unlikely that their numbers will grow enough to jeopardize McConnell’s job, given his deep congressional support. And Trump’s opposition is hardly new, pushing the party to dump McConnell since the Senate leader gave a scathing speech blaming the former president for the January 6 riot at the US Capitol. But it represents an unusual direct challenge to the authority of McConnell, who is set to become the longest-serving Senate leader in history if he wins another leadership term. “We may or may not vote tomorrow, but I think the outcome is pretty clear,” McConnell told reporters Tuesday. “I want to repeat again: I have the votes. I will be elected. The only question is whether we will do it sooner or later.” Scott was one of a small group of senators who wrote a letter to the Republican caucus over the weekend asking for a delay in this week’s leadership election “so that we can have serious discussions in our convention as to why and what we can do to improve our chances in 2024.” Republican senators discussed the way forward during their regular caucus lunch on Tuesday. About 20 senators spoke in the room. Scott and McConnell exchanged what their colleagues said were “candid” and “lively” barbs, with spats during the midterms, the quality of the GOP candidates running and their differences over fundraising . The senators made their individual cases for the two men. Some members directly challenged Scott in his defense of McConnell, including Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who questioned the Florida senator’s stewardship of the NRSC, according to a person familiar with the meeting. Scott “disagrees with Mitch’s approach to this election, and over the last two years he’s made that clear,” said Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri, who called for a delay and to oust McConnell. “Senator McConnell criticized Senator Scott’s management of the NRSC. I imagine we’ll hear more about that tomorrow.” Among the many reasons Scott lists for the challenge is that Republicans compromised too much with Democrats in the last Congress — creating bills that President Joe Biden has counted as successes and that Democrats have fielded in the 2022 election. “I believe it is time for the Senate Republican Conference to be much more bold and decisive than we have been in the past,” Scott said in the letter, sent to colleagues as the GOP caucus was still underway. “We need to start saying what we are for, not just what we are against.” But as the leader of the National Republican Senatorial Committee after a disappointing election, Scott is also an imperfect vessel to achieve the goals of frustrated Republicans and Trump. “If you’re going to make this about assessing responsibility for losing an election, I don’t know how the NRSC chairman gets away with it,” said North Dakota Sen. Kevin Cramer. “I think that would be the obvious problem he would have.” The feud between Scott and McConnell had been simmering for months and came to a boil as election results showed there would not be a Republican Senate surge as Scott predicted, according to senior Republican strategists. They and others interviewed about the controversy were not authorized to discuss internal matters by name and insisted on anonymity. The two men’s staffs have traded insults for more than a year over their handling of Senate Republican political strategy — or, in the view of some, the lack thereof. The controversy began shortly after he took over the party’s caucus in late 2020, which many in the party saw as an effort to build his national political profile and donor network ahead of a possible presidential bid in 2024. Some were angered by the ad material from the committee that was heavy on Scott’s own biography, while focusing less on the candidates up for election. Then Scott released an 11-point plan earlier this year that called for a modest tax increase on many of the lowest-paid Americans while opening the door to cuts to Social Security and Medicare, which McConnell rejected quickly, although he declined to offer an agenda of his own. Scott’s Senate committee officials went into screening mode almost immediately, reaching out to Republican campaigns across the country to gauge their frustration while offering help via text messages, according to senior Republican strategists with direct knowledge of the situation. who considered it an “unforced error”. “A strategic disagreement” is how Scott has characterized their divergent views. In August, McConnell belittled Scott during a Senate GOP luncheon. Shortly after Scott made a request for committee donations from Republican senators, McConnell addressed the chamber and told senators to prioritize the Senate Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by longtime McConnell allies, according to two people familiar with the matter. they know the conversation. Last week, McConnell’s super PAC cut Scott out of his efforts to boost turnout in the Georgia runoff, with the super PAC working with Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s political enterprise. The decision stemmed in part from declining confidence in Scott’s leadership, as well as the committee’s poor finances, which were $20 million in debt, according to a senior Republican adviser. For some Senate Republicans, however, the controversy is irrelevant to their decision to support Scott. “We have to have a plan for the American public, and if we don’t, we can expect a lot more of the same,” said Indiana Sen. Mike Brown, who is backing Scott’s challenge to McConnell.
